Better Off Dead
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: Matt Casey had been missing for three days when Firehouse 51 responded to a call and found him unconscious in a hotel room, the victim of an unspeakable crime. Surviving his attack was bad enough, now he had to survive the recovery. Last chapter's finally up!
1. Chapter 1

Better Off Dead

Matt Casey was missing. Nobody knew exactly when he'd gone missing. All anybody at Firehouse 51 knew was that the last time they saw or heard from him was when they went off last shift. The next day Herrmann had tried calling him to ask about taking over as acting lieutenant for a shift to get a feel for it for whenever the day came he got to put his rank to the test. There had been no answer. Nobody had thought anything about it, the guy had a construction business on the side, he was probably busy. Then Severide had tried calling, see if Casey was interested in going to Molly's for a drink, still no answer. He'd stopped by Casey's apartment, the truck wasn't there but that didn't necessarily mean anything since he'd mentioned taking it to the shop. He tried the door, it was locked and there was no answer. Kelly put his training to the test and kicked the door open, searched the whole apartment, no sign of Casey anywhere.

He'd reached out to everybody from 51 to see if anybody had heard from him, nobody had. Trying not to panic, he'd reached out to Antonio and asked for help. Cops came to the apartment, checked everything, searched his computer, turned up nothing. The next 24 hours were a tense wait for everybody, by the time they went on shift again, the only update from the police was that Casey's pickup had been found abandoned under a bridge five miles from his home. There had been no forensic sign of a struggle, just the driver's side door left open and the battery completely dead, latent prints were lifted off the door handle from the inside and out and the steering wheel, though nobody was too optimistic any prints but Casey's would turn up. Chaplain Orlovsky stopped by the firehouse to join them in prayer that Matt would be found alive and well soon, and offer his services to anybody who wanted to talk.

A few hours into shift, the bells had gone off, there was a suspected fire at a hotel in one of the seedier parts of the city. Though everybody was aware of what they had to do, none of them could put their sole attention in the job at hand, everybody still wanted to know what had happened to their lieutenant.

The run down hotel was six stories tall and smoke was pouring out from some busted windows on the 5th and 6th floors. Some people had already gotten out but the manager explained there were still some people inside who hadn't evacuated, nobody knew for sure how many but the estimate was 10. Additional ambos were called in and 61 was on standby for the first victims brought out. Entering the lobby they saw smoke trailing down the stairs, the elevators were an obvious dead end, though Otis went to the controls and brought them all down just to make sure nobody was stupid enough to actually try using them. Everybody else went up to the top two floors first to check for victims. They weren't able to find the source of the fire yet and guessed it must've started in the wiring, in which case they had no way of knowing how long it would be before the whole place was busting out in fires, but their priority right now was finding anybody still inside and getting them out to the paramedics. Everybody paired off to sweep the floors and check for victims. Tony and Capp swept the 4th floor, Herrmann and Mouch took the 3rd floor, Severide and Cruz checked the 2nd.

Kelly kicked in a locked door, "Fire department, call out!"

Cruz was across the hall, kicked in another door and called out in English and Spanish, no response. The rooms were empty, so they moved on.

"I got one!" Kelly called at the third door he kicked in.

There was a 20-something year old woman face down on the floor, barely responsive, only enough to cough. He and Cruz carried her to the stairs where EMTs were ready with a stair chair, got her strapped in and took her down, then they resumed their search. Over their radios they heard Herrmann announce they'd found five kids in one of the bathtubs and their mother was unresponsive on the bed, there was some medication on the nightstand so they weren't sure if she'd suffered smoke inhalation, or lapsed into a diabetic coma. There was a response from the EMTs that additional ambos were just pulling up and somebody would be with them soon to help carry her down, meanwhile Mouch was leading the kids down the stairs to the exit while Herrmann stayed with the woman and checked her vitals.

Otis reported in that they'd gotten all the elevators down to the lobby and there was nobody in them, small favors indeed.

"Smoke's getting thicker up here!" Herrmann called out on his radio, "let's finish sweeping and get out."

There was a crackle on the radio, the next thing they heard was Tony's voice.

"Severide, we found Casey!"

" _What_?" Kelly was sure he'd heard wrong.

"We found him on the 4th floor, he's unconscious, we're bringing him down!"

Severide felt his knees going weak, he replanted his feet to stand straight. He turned to Cruz and they looked at each other with a mutual expression of confusion, worry, and relief. They finished sweeping the 2nd floor and found no additional victims. Herrmann and Mouch reported the 3rd floor was also cleared. Severide went to the stairwell and saw Capp and Tony carrying Casey's unconscious body down the stairs.

"What happened?" he asked as they came down to the 2nd floor.

"I don't know," Capp shook his head, "he was on the floor next to the bed."

"There's a body up there," Tony said as they moved to the first floor stairs, "he's been dead for a while."

"Any idea who it is?"

Tony shook his head.

Severide ran alongside his men as they carried Casey through the front doors and lowered him onto a waiting backboard. Ambo 61 was already in-route to Med so another company would be taking him to the hospital. In the daylight they got a better look at Casey and he looked terrible, his face and hair were covered with soot and what skin wasn't covered with soot was pale and ashy, his clothes were a mess, he was barefoot, he was almost unrecognizable. He was put on oxygen and moved into the ambulance.

"Is the building clear?" Boden asked.

"DOA on the 4th floor," Tony said, "we probably got time to go back and bring it down, be easier for the ME to identify him while he's still got his skin on."

Boden looked at the smoke pouring out of the building and told them, "Five minutes, if you don't find him by then, get your assess out."

"Copy, Chief," Capp said.

Severide was right beside Boden and looked at him with wide questioning eyes.

"Go," Boden nodded towards the ambulance, "go."

Severide merely nodded and ran over to ride with Casey. The paramedics tending to him weren't familiar with him so Kelly filled them in on all of Matt's medical history that he could remember.

"How long till we reach Med?" he asked.

"ETA's 10 minutes," one of the paramedics told him.

Kelly looked down at his friend who looked like death ran him over, then backed up and tried again, and wondered aloud, "What the hell happened to you, Casey?"

* * *

"On my count, one, two, three."

Will Halstead and the attending staff moved Matt Casey from the gurney onto the exam table. The paramedics had taken him off oxygen for the time being, he was able to breathe on his own but was still largely non-responsive.

"Oh my God, Matt," Maggie said as she stepped into the room and snapped on a pair of gloves. "What happened?"

"Found unconscious in a fire," Will said as they started getting him hooked up to monitor.

"He's been missing for two days," Maggie told him. She looked him over and said, "Dr. Halstead, something's wrong."

That was obvious but Will wanted to know what specifically Maggie meant. "What do you mean?"

Maggie grabbed the collar of the shirt Casey was wearing, it pooled around his neck. "These clothes are at least one size too large, these aren't Matt's clothes."

"What's that?" Will asked as he saw something under the shirt collar on Casey's chest.

They cut off the shirt and saw a mess of bruises around his neck and on his chest, and on his arms, and...

"Ligature marks," Maggie gasped as she saw the purple bands of indention marks around his wrists.

Will noted that the jeans were also too big and rolled up the bottoms in cuffs to examine Casey's feet.

"Legs too," he said as he discovered the matching purple bands above the ankles.

"Oh my God," Maggie gasped as she looked him over, she looked up at Will with wide eyes and asked, "what the hell happened?"

"I don't know, but look at this," Will touched the soot on Casey's face and revealed a bruise hidden underneath it.

"Was Casey on the fire floor?"

"I don't think so."

"So where'd this come from?" Will asked, "it's like somebody intentionally tried to cover up the bruises."

Maggie shrugged, "It must've been from when the firefighters carried him out."

"But there's hardly any on the clothes," Will pointed out.

"That doesn't make sense," Maggie replied.

"Is somebody here who responded to the fire?" Will asked.

"Kelly is," Maggie answered.

"See if he knows anything about this."

* * *

"Kelly," Maggie walked out to the waiting room, "I need you to answer some questions about when you found Matt."

"Yeah, sure," Kelly nodded, "Whatever I can."

"Did you find Matt?" she asked.

"Uh no, I was two floors below, Capp and Tony found him."

"Was he conscious at the time?"

"No, he'd already inhaled a lot of smoke, Tony put his mask on him to get a couple hits off the oxygen, it didn't work."

"Did they say where they found him?" Maggie asked.

"In one of the hotel rooms on the floor by the bed, why?" Kelly asked.

"Just standard pain in the ass hospital protocol," Maggie answered.

"Has Casey woken up yet?"

"No, his lungs are cleared but he's still out cold," she told him.

"But he's gonna be okay, right?" Severide asked.

"That's what we want to make sure of," Maggie said, "just seeing if there was anything else we needed to check for."

* * *

"Kelly wasn't on the same floor where Casey was, Tony and Capp found him and carried him down to the ambo," Maggie told Will as she returned to the exam room.

"Where?"

"They said he was on the floor by the bed," Maggie said.

"Do you believe it?" Halstead asked her.

"I have a feeling you don't," she replied.

Will pointed to the purple marks on Casey's body, "These are unmistakable, somebody beat the hell out of Casey, and somebody had him tied up for an extended length of time."

"And _somebody_ got him dressed," Maggie said.

"In a set of clothes that aren't even his," Will remarked.

"You think whoever did that to him dressed him?" Maggie asked.

"What happened to the ones _he_ was wearing?" Will asked.

Maggie shrugged.

Will shook his head, "I think somebody dressed him who was trying to preserve some dignity for him."

Maggie's eyes widened, "The firemen?"

"Think about it, get him dressed, cover the bruises with soot, it at least gets him out of the scene with few questions asked," Will said. "The question is did whoever had him tied up in that hotel room _plan_ to get him out of there?"

"Or did the fire disrupt his plans?" Maggie finished the thought.

The two looked at each other hesitantly for a minute.

"You know we need the patient's consent to do a rape exam," Will said.

"Yes," Maggie answered.

"But any forensic evidence on his clothes is fair game since they're not even _his_ clothes and they'll be disposed of anyway," Will told her, "if these are his attacker's clothes, they may be able to lift some DNA from them, and find out who it is, and find out if he has any STDs we need to start Casey on meds for."

"Copy that, Doctor Halstead," Maggie said as she collected the shirt and jeans they'd cut off of Casey.

* * *

Kelly looked at Maggie with a puzzled expression, which quickly turned to outrage as he asked her, "What are you saying, Maggie?"

"Just that something about your men's story doesn't add up, it's very hard to believe that they simply found Casey as he was."

"Why's that?"

"Kelly, did you get a good look at Casey?"

Severide paused for a minute and answered, "No, first Capp and Tony were blocking the view, then the paramedics were working on him."

"Did the paramedics notice anything unusual?"

"They're from a different house, they don't know Casey."

"Kelly, Matt has heavy bruising all over his body, a contusion on the back of the head consistent with being blitzed from behind, and ligature marks on his wrists and ankles," Maggie told him.

" _What_?"

"Whoever got to him kept him tied to the bed at the hotel, and somebody got him dressed in clothes that probably belong to his attacker. Doctor Halstead is still examining him, but it's very likely that he was the victim of a sexual assault," Maggie explained.

"My God," Kelly tried to take all of it in.

"How long did it take when they got to Casey's floor for them to radio in that they found him?"

"We swept the floors for victims, Cruz and I were about done on 2 when Tony said they found him on 4. It took them a while to carry him down."

"When the cops come to question everyone, they're going to know that something doesn't add up," Maggie said, "so you better check with your men so everybody has their stories straight. If Voight's people are brought in on this, you _know_ they're going to figure it out."

Kelly nodded. "I will, thanks for the heads up. How's Matt doing?"

"Dr. Halstead is still examining him, he's severely dehydrated so we got an IV in him and are pushing fluids, when we know more I'll let you know," she told him.

Severide nodded in a dumbstruck manner, "Thanks, Maggie."

* * *

"What happened at the hotel?" Kelly asked his men when they parked themselves in chairs in the waiting room.

Tony looked at him, "What're you talking about, Severide?"

"The doctors _know_ something's wrong, what happened with Casey?" Kelly asked. "Why did you guys lie?"

Capp and Tony turned and looked at each other and shared a mutual expression that didn't tell Kelly anything.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We had to do something, Kelly, he wouldn't want everyone to see him like that," Capp told his lieutenant.

"Like what?"

"Whoever the bastard was that kidnapped Casey left him tied to that bed face down bare ass naked," Tony told him, "We got him untied, found some clothes, got him dressed, then radioed that we found him. One of our own, Kelly, the roof could've come down, we weren't going to bring him out like we found him."

Kelly nodded hesitantly. "How bad of shape was he in?"

"Bruised and bloody," Capp answered grimly, "somebody worked him over."

"God," Kelly hissed under his breath, "how can this be happening? What happened to him? When we left last shift, he was fine, _how_ did this happen? Who's responsible?"

"If the bastard's lucky, we'll _never_ find out," Tony said.

Kelly shook his head and looked like he was going to be sick.

"I have to see him," he said, "I have to see if he's going to be alright."

* * *

Kelly looked in the room Casey had been moved to, he was dressed in a hospital gown, he'd been cleaned up, and he looked like he was sleeping peacefully though Kelly doubted very much that that was the case. He stepped into the room and made his way over to the bed and looked down at the blonde lieutenant. Now the bruises on his face were plain as day, as were the hand marks on his neck and part of his chest. He glanced down and saw the purple band around the hospital bracelet they'd placed on him.

"What happened to you, Casey?" he quietly asked.

When Kelly looked up again, Casey's eyes were open and seemed to be staring up at him.

"Casey!" Severide whispered in relief.

Casey did not appear so relieved to finally be conscious, he grumbled and groaned and rubbed his eyes and muttered, "Oh my God...this didn't happen...you're not here."

"Casey."

"Go away, Severide," Casey told him as he pulled the sheet up higher on him.

"Casey, what happened?" Kelly asked him.

"I said go away," Casey replied as he turned on his side facing away from him.

"Casey, we've all been worried to death, what happened? _"_

" _Get out_!" Casey yelled at him, and started reaching for anything within his reach to chuck at Severide. "Get out! Get out! GET OOOOUUUUT!"

That was enough noise to bring everybody running, doctors, nurses _and_ hospital security, and finally made Severide back out of the room in shock and confusion.

"Go away! All of you _go away_!" Casey screamed at anybody who set foot in his room.

Severide was left standing outside the room without a clue what was going on, he felt completely lost.

"Come on, Kelly," Maggie guided him away from the room, "let Casey rest right now."

"W-what happened?" Kelly tried to put it all together.

"Just leave him be for now," Maggie told him, "when he calms down you can see him."

"Is he alright?" Kelly asked.

"Dr. Halstead's going to do everything he can for him."

"Is he gonna be alright?" Kelly reiterated.

"Try not to worry, go back to the waiting room, we'll come get you when there's an update," Maggie told him.

"Maggie, w-what about a rape kit? Can you do that so the cops can find out who did this?"

"Matt has to consent to it, otherwise there's nothing we can do," she said.

Kelly could still hear Casey screaming up the hall, he knew there was no way in hell Matt would consent to that.

"Nothing?" he asked.

"We have to respect the patient's wishes," she told him.

Kelly reluctantly took a couple steps, then stopped and looked back at her, "I just wanted to know what happened."

"I know, we're all wondering the same thing, when Casey feels up to talking about it, he will," Maggie said.

Kelly trudged along a couple more steps, then said to her, "Somebody ought to stay with him."

"I think he prefers being alone right now," Maggie replied.

"But if anything would happen..."

"He'll be closely monitored, don't worry," she assured him.

"But I gotta know what happened," Kelly told her, "He's been missing for 2 days, we all thought he was dead."

"I know," she nodded sympathetically, "But he needs to rest now."

Kelly reluctantly nodded, then headed towards the waiting room.


	2. Chapter 2

A couple hours later, Kelly poked his head in Casey's room and asked him, "How're you doing?" He had no idea if Casey had slept, but there hadn't been any outbursts since he ordered everyone out of the room, so that had to be a sign of improvement.

Casey shifted his attention from the ceiling over him to the man standing in the doorway and said shortly, "I'm fine, I want to go home."

"Did the doctors clear you?"

"I don't need them to clear me, I want to get out of here," Casey said as he pushed back the sheet.

Kelly stepped into the room. "I don't think that's a good idea, Casey."

"I don't give a damn what you think," Casey said as he hurriedly stood up, "I'm getting out of here!"

Casey let out a sudden yell as he moved away from the bed, and in that same instance Severide felt his heart jump in his throat when he saw blood on the bed. He ran over and grabbed Casey just as he started to sway, and his heart jumped back out of his throat and dropped off in his stomach when he realized where the blood had come from.

"Maggie!" he called as he turned around with the full weight of his friend in his arms. Casey was staggering against him and making a series of small incoherent sounds but no words were coming out.

Maggie came running and when she assessed the scene she called for a gurney and for Dr. Halstead. What happened next seemed to occur so quickly that Severide's head was spinning, he tried to ask what was going on but they were suddenly surrounded by orderlies and nurses and Casey was taken out of his arms and lifted onto the gurney, and he tried to fight against it, he struggled with everybody, but he was strapped down to the gurney as they started to wheel him out of the room. Severide tried to ask where Casey was being taken but his head felt like it was in a fog and everything had simultaneously sped up and slowed down all at the same time and nothing was making any sense. The last thing he saw before everybody disappeared down the hall was Casey trying to sit up on the gurney, desperately crying out to him as if for help, "Kelly! KELLY!"

But Severide felt like his feet had been glued to the floor where he stood, suddenly he didn't have the strength or energy to move, and he just stood there feeling dumbstruck by what had just taken place.

* * *

An orderly took the bloody sheets off Casey's bed and put new ones on, Severide stood leaning against the wall in a stupor, not having any idea where Casey had been taken or what was happening to him right now or even if he was going to be alright. It felt like he'd been standing around forever, finally he saw Maggie coming back, and he was already dreading the news.

"Maggie."

"They're going to be bringing him back shortly, Kelly," she told him, "he wouldn't stop fighting with the doctors so they sedated him, he's still out cold so you won't be able to talk to him yet."

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

"He needed stitches."

Kelly squeezed his eye shut, trying to shut out that mental image, "Oh my God."

"They'll need to stay in for about two weeks, since it's an internal surgery they used dissolvable stitches so he shouldn't need to come back to have them taken out."

"Small favors," Severide murmured, knowing in the back of his mind that any chance they'd had of the hospital doing a rape kit just went out the window, and feeling like they'd somehow let Matt down by letting that happen. "How long does he have to stay in the hospital?"

"He'll be monitored for any complications, if all goes well, they should be able to send him home in a couple days," Maggie told him.

Kelly looked past her and saw Casey being wheeled back to his room. "Oh God."

As the gurney passed by them, Kelly saw Casey was dead to the world, he hated to think they'd have to keep him sedated full time just to keep him calm. He watched as Casey was transferred back to the bed and covered up, then everybody left the room.

"Can I stay with him?" he asked Maggie.

"Just as long as Casey doesn't object," she told him. "If he starts screaming again you have to leave, he has to rest right now."

He nodded glumly, "I understand."

Kelly stood outside the room and watched Casey for a while. It didn't look like he'd be waking up anytime soon. Severide went into the room, pulled up a chair next to the bed, watched Casey while he slept, after a while he methodically stroked over the top of his head and quietly talked to him, hoping his voice would let Casey know where he was and that he wouldn't flashback to his attack. He didn't know how long he sat there like that with Casey, it felt like hours, but eventually he fell asleep.

* * *

When he woke up, he saw Casey sitting up in the bed and he also seemed to be slowly coming around, but he wasn't anymore grateful to see Kelly now than he had been before.

"Leave me alone, Kelly," he said.

"Why?" Severide had to know.

"I don't want to see anybody," Casey said as he turned over on his side and moaned.

"Careful, you got..." but Kelly knew Casey didn't need to be reminded of the stitches, he would be reminded every time he moved.

"Just go away, _please_ ," Casey begged him as he buried his face into his pillow.

"Casey, will you just talk to me?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Casey didn't want to turn his whole body back around, so he settled for turning his head halfway back to look at him, "Do you have any idea how humiliating this is? Now everybody's gonna know!"

Severide was dumbstruck by his comment, but quickly recovered and said in return, "Casey the doctors here are trained professionals, they see this all the time, they know it wasn't your fault."

"Not them," Casey sounded near tears, "Everybody at 51!"

Severide wondered if Casey remembered anything from when he was at the hotel. "Casey, do you know who found you?"

"I don't want to know!" Casey covered his face with his hands and grumbled, "Don't tell me that, please don't tell me!"

Severide stood over the bed and gently pulled Casey's hands away from his face, "Casey look at me, please."

"I can't face _any_ of them again," Casey groaned.

"Casey _they_ know this wasn't your fault," Severide told him.

"Go away!" Casey turned his head away from him, "Please go away!"

Severide knew Maggie was on her way to escort him out, so he did as he was told, and he left for the time being, and just about bumped into Dr. Charles in the process.

"Well," the psychiatrist said, awkwardly breaking the ice, "all things considered, that didn't go as badly as it could've."

"Do you know what happened?" Kelly asked.

"I haven't been in to see him personally, if that's what you're asking," Dr. Charles told him, "but I have been brought in on the case. Dr. Halstead thought I might be able to help him, but it's pretty obvious he's not ready to open up yet."

"Will he be?" Kelly asked.

"I won't know that until I try talking to him," Daniel replied.

Kelly's eyes lit up with a faint hope, "Can you? Can you talk to him?"

"I'll let him calm down and I'll certainly try," Dr. Charles told him.

Severide felt like they were finally going to get somewhere. "Thank you."

"I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do," the psychiatrist said.

* * *

"So how's Casey doing, Severide?" Herrmann asked as everybody crowded around the waiting room for an update.

Kelly shook his head, "I don't know...he doesn't want to see anyone, he doesn't want to talk to anyone, he had...had to have stitches, it was a mess. Do the cops have any leads?"

"None that we've heard," Boden replied, "what're the doctors saying?"

Severide shrugged, "They said if nothing goes wrong, they'll send him home in a few days."

"What do they mean if nothing goes wrong?" Cruz asked, "Like what?"

"I don't have any idea," Kelly told them, "nobody's telling me much of anything."

"Have you actually talked to Casey?" Otis asked.

"I tried but, he's not talking to me," Severide shook his head. "Dr. Charles said he'd try taking a crack at him later."

"This whole thing is messed up," Mouch commented, "how the hell could this even happen to Casey?"

Severide opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but he remembered something he'd heard earlier.

"Maggie said he'd been hit in the back of the head, so he probably never saw it coming," Kelly realized.

"But who did it? And how'd he get to Casey?" Otis asked. "When we went off shift Casey said he was going home, so how'd his truck wind up under that bridge? It's five miles from his place, and seven miles in the other direction from the hotel where he wound up."

"Obviously whoever kidnapped him ditched the truck, figured nobody would find it," Kelly said.

"Yeah, but that meant he had to have a car ready wherever he ditched the truck," Otis said.

Cruz turned to him, "You mean he might've been working with someone?"

"Maybe he had a partner," Otis realized.

"That's enough," Boden spoke up. "The police are looking into the matter, they don't need our speculations, they will follow the facts."

"Yeah but good luck with that, the wiring in that hotel hasn't been new since Ford was president," Mouch pointed out, "the whole place was a loss, they can't get forensics from the hotel room, any record of who had that room would be gone too."

Something came to Otis, he stood up and told the others, "I gotta cut out, guys, I've got something I need to take care of."

"Okay, we'll keep ya posted," Herrmann said.

* * *

The hotel might've been a total loss, but Otis knew the manager got out unscathed, and with a little luck, he was able to get the name and home address of the manager, a guy in his 50s who looked like he'd been a used car salesman or a politician in a previous life, who was very curious why a firefighter was coming to see him. Otis decided to go with his usual charm and lie.

"We're assisting CPD in the investigation of what started the fire, and they are trying to track down everybody who was in the hotel at the time, since the fire spread to the top two floors, they want to know the names of the customers who were living in the 4th floor."

"And what makes you think I'd know that?"

"Because I don't think you want your neighbors watching you being hauled out of here in handcuffs for failure to comply and obstructing an official police investigation," Otis told him.

The man took that in and after a minute told Otis, "Business has been slow. Only two rooms were occupied at that time."

"Names?"

"David Donner, he'd just checked in a couple days ago, I think...oh God, I think he was the one they carried out dead. And then Richard Welker, he'd been staying for about a month, he paid on a weekly basis, all cash."

"I'm sure he did," Otis replied as he took out his phone and pulled up a picture of Casey, "Did you ever see _this_ man at the hotel?"

The manager looked at it and nodded, "Yeah, last Saturday night."

That was the first night off shift, about 12 hours before Herrmann first tried calling him and got no answer.

"Was he with Welker by chance?" Otis asked.

"Uh yeah, he was...guy was falling down drunk, Welker had to hold him up clear to the elevator. He told me to put him down for two for the night and paid the extra in cash."

"You're sure he was drunk?"

"Oh yeah, guy could barely talk, barely keep his eyes open, he looked about dead."

Otis grimly nodded, "I see. Did Welker check out?"

"No, but he was always coming and going, I think he left early that morning," the manager explained.

Otis nodded again and told him, "Thank you, I will be sure and let CPD know you've been most cooperative."

He turned and left, and his next stop _was_ at the 21st District to speak to one of the officers investigating what happened to Casey, and fill them in on what he'd found out, hoping it would be of some use to them.

* * *

Dr. Charles met Kelly in the hospital cafeteria later that day after he'd decided to try speaking with Casey. It was crowded but they managed to find an unoccupied table to sit at and talk.

"How'd it go?" he asked hopefully.

Dr. Charles sat at the table and told him, "Well, I've been doing this a long time, and I have a _lot_ of experience talking to patients' backs, so that was pretty much on par."

Severide groaned and lowered his head against the tabletop.

"However," Daniel felt a need to add, "he's the first person over the age of 7 I ever talked to who signaled the end of the conversation by pulling the covers up over his head."

Kelly groaned again and smacked himself in the forehead. Dr. Charles didn't seem to think the situation as hopeless as Severide did, and told him, "You have to realize that right now Matt's terrified, of everything: his attack, the fact he couldn't do anything to stop it, that everybody now knows what happened, how they're going to respond to it. Any way you look at it, the entire outlook on his life has become very frightening to Casey."

"What can I do to help him?" Kelly wanted to know.

"You want my professional opinion?" Daniel took off his glasses and looked him in the eyes, "Stay close by. Right now he's trying to drive everyone away so he doesn't have to deal with anybody's reactions, but soon he's going to need someone around he trusts."

"Is he going to be alright?" Severide asked.

"Are you asking physically or mentally?"

"Both."

Dr. Charles looked uncertain about that, "If he agrees to talk, we can start him on therapy while he's here, he'd have to continue seeing a therapist once he got discharged...but yes, I think in time he will be fine."

"How much time?" Kelly asked.

"Unfortunately nobody knows the answer to that one," Dr. Charles told him.


	3. Chapter 3

Casey opened his eyes and looked around the hospital room. Through the door he could hear the sound of people talking up and down the hall, the sound of elevator doors opening, the sound of gurneys being pushed across the floor, it was a distant sound so it was probably the floor below. His own room was very quiet, nothing but the slow beeps on the monitors he was hooked up to. He was still laying on his side and dreaded turning over, suddenly he felt alone and uncertain.

"Kelly?" he called out tensely. It had been hours since he'd last seen Severide, since he'd screamed at him to leave him alone; maybe he'd actually listened, maybe he'd gone home, if so that meant he was all alone now, and that was enough to send him into a near panic.

Severide leaned over and stuck his head in the door and called over to the man facing away from him, "I'm right here, buddy, watcha need?"

Casey almost laughed. Severide was worse than a cockroach, you couldn't get rid of him no matter what you did.

"Get me out of here," he said weakly.

Kelly walked over towards the bed. "What?"

"I want to go home," Casey insisted.

"Take it easy," Severide told him, wordlessly stressing not to get all worked up again and maybe pull his stitches loose. He went around to the other side of the bed so Casey could see him, and told him, "I know you want to, buddy, but you've got to stay here for right now." He saw Casey roll his eyes back in his head and throw his head back against the pillow in despair. "I know, buddy, I know, I'm sorry, but you need to wait until the doctors clear you."

"I don't want to be here," Casey said with a small whine.

"I know."

Casey closed his eyes as if trying to suppress what was happening.

"Casey, nobody knew what happened, nobody knew where you were, we were all worried what had happened to you."

" _You_ were worried?" Casey asked accusingly as he glared at him, as if he and the others had no _right_ to be worried by his disappearance. His eyes softened after the outburst and he said in a quieter tone, "I'm sorry."

Kelly stroked his hand over the back of Casey's head and told him, "It's alright."

"I _want_ to go home!" Casey said with a more pronounced whine, not caring how it sounded, he was so desperate to get out of there and put everything behind him, or try anyway.

"Casey, the guys are out in the waiting room, they want to know how you're doing," Kelly told him.

Casey buried his face in the pillow and groaned, "Make them go away."

"Casey..."

"I can't see any of them," he said.

Kelly knew they'd already gone off this bridge once already but he felt a need to bring it up again, "Casey, do you know who found you in the hotel? Do you remember what happened?"

Before Casey answered, assuming he would, Tony appeared in the doorway and asked, "Hey Kelly, is he awake?"

"GET OUT!" Casey yelled at him as he turned over to face the door, "OOOUUUT!"

Tony just about fell over backwards as he scrambled to get out of the room, a few seconds later Kelly was right behind him.

"I'm sorry, Kelly, I didn't know."

"It's just a bad time right now," Kelly told him.

"Kelly!" Casey called from the bed, sounding panicked, " _Kelly_!"

Severide turned back and went to see what was wrong. "What is it?"

Casey moved back on the bed and screamed in pain as his eyes were wrenched shut. Kelly got over to the bed and Casey grabbed hold of him and tried to talk over the terrified screams that were forcing their way out of his throat. Kelly turned to the door and screamed for the doctor, and held onto his best friend, panicked, wondering what had happened now.

* * *

Dr. Halstead stood at the foot of the bed and addressed both Casey, who was sitting up in the bed, and Kelly, who was standing right beside it.

"Complications like this are precisely why we wanted to keep Matt here and monitor him," Will told them.

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

"The human body is designed to reject any foreign objects it detects inside of it, that's why there are complications following organ transplants, breast implants, pacemakers, stent surgery, hip and knee replacement, lap band surgery...Matt's body is trying to reject the dissolvable sutures that were used, it's causing inflammation at the wound site."

"Oh God," Casey dropped his head down to his chest and covered his eyes with his hands.

"What does that mean?" Kelly asked.

"We're going to continue monitoring him to make sure infection doesn't set in and we'll wait and see if his body adapts to the sutures, if not, we'll have to take them out and put in permanent stitches, in which case he _will_ have to come back in two weeks and have them taken out."

"Oh _God_ ," Casey moaned louder as he dropped his hands alongside his body and he asked Dr. Halstead furiously, "Am I going to be left with _any_ dignity when you're done torturing me?"

"I'm very sorry, Matt, I can appreciate how hard this is for you..."

"What the hell do _you_ know about what I'm going through?" Casey snapped at him.

"Casey," Severide said warningly.

"Just... _get out_ , leave me alone," Casey said. " _Everybody_ leave me alone."

"Alright, Matt, we can do that," Will nodded at Kelly knowingly, "someone will check in on you later."

"Go away, go away," Casey weakly moaned into the side of his pillow as he turned on his side away from them.

Severide reluctantly followed Will out of the room and told him, "Sorry about that."

"It's understandable, he's being put through a lot right now and that's _after_ the trauma of what he went through," Will responded.

"So now what?" Kelly asked.

"Like I said, we'll keep monitoring him and make sure nothing else happens, if it does, we'll deal with it then."

Will headed down the corridor to check on other patients, Kelly headed back towards Casey's room, he looked in and saw Casey had shoved his head under a pillow, but through the open door he could hear the muffled sound of Matt crying. Now Kelly realized why he wanted them out of the room. He stood there watching Casey for several minutes, then finally he walked back in the room and went over to the bed.

"Matt," he said quietly.

The figure laying face down on the bed stopped moving, and was quiet for a few seconds, then from under the pillow he heard a muffled, "Go away, Severide."

Kelly stood his ground. "No."

Casey's hands reached for the pillow and he slid his head out from under it and asked in disbelief as he turned over, " _What_?"

"I'm sorry what you're going through, and I don't want you getting worked up and screaming your head off again, but I'm not leaving," Kelly told him, his tone simultaneously firm and gentle. "Whatever it is you're scared of everyone knowing, you don't have to be, and you know it. Nobody is going to blame you for what happened, and you know nobody is going to think any less of you for it, _I_ don't, I know nobody else does."

Casey's eyes welled up again with fresh tears, he turned his head to look the other way.

"You're not going to go through this alone, I can promise you that," Kelly said.

Casey stuck his head back under the pillow, Kelly heard him start crying again, and felt his heart sink. He patted Casey's back and told him, "I'm going to stay here with you, alright?"

There was no response, which Kelly took as an agreement. He pulled a chair over to the bed and sat down beside his best friend and calmly patted his hand and waited for him to wear down.

* * *

Severide wasn't _too_ surprised when he returned to the waiting room and saw everybody was still there. He was sure they'd been rotating all day just to make sure somebody was there at all times, but they were all there now.

"How is he?" Boden asked.

"Sleeping right now," Kelly said, "he's had a few, what the doctors call 'hiccups'."

"Uh oh," Herrmann muttered under his breath and told Mouch, "That's what they said after I got stabbed and relapsed into unconsciousness."

"Nothing like that," Kelly said, "he...his body is not reacting well to the stitches they put in, right now they're watching to see if they need to take them out and put in new ones."

That earned a collective groan of sympathy from everybody in the room.

"How long will it take to find out?" Cruz asked.

"They're only supposed to be in two weeks so I guess it's going to be soon," Kelly said.

"Think he'll let anyone else stay with him for a while?" Otis asked.

"Uh...as long as he's asleep he probably doesn't care," Kelly said, "if he wakes up, that could quickly become another story."

"Well..." Otis held up his hands in a gesture, "I'm willing to give it a try if anybody else is."

Kelly noticed Boden's eyes widened slightly at somebody coming into the waiting room, he turned and saw Hank Voight heading their way.

"What're you doing here?" Severide asked.

"How's Matt?"

"He's resting right now," Kelly said, before he finished the last word he saw Voight heading towards the corridor, "Hey! You can't go in there!"

Voight calmly turned around and showed his badge and told Severide, "This allows me into any room in this whole hospital, without your permission." And with that he continued down the hall.

Kelly took off after Voight and yelled at him, "He's not going to talk to you!"

"This doesn't involve you, Severide," Voight told him.

"The hell it doesn't, I'm not leaving him alone with you!" Kelly said.

Voight looked at him and nonchalantly replied, "That's fine, then you can listen to what I have to say too, and you just might learn something."

Voight casually walked into the hospital room and they both saw Casey asleep in the bed. Severide reached for Voight but the sergeant got away from him and went over to the left side of the bed. "Matt?"

Casey slowly opened his eyes and saw Voight standing next to the bed. His eyes hardened and he told the Intelligence sergeant, "Go away."

"I realize right now you don't want company, but there's a reason why I came here," Voight told him.

"I'm not talking to you!" Casey yelled at him defensively.

"That's fine," Voight responded as he took out his phone, "I don't need you to talk to me, I just need you to listen, and look at something."

Severide stood on the right side of the bed and looked over at what Voight was doing. He pulled up a picture on the screen and showed it to Casey. It was a picture of a man in a mugshot photo who looked somewhere in his 40s, white skin, short dark hair, slightly heavyset, bad complexion, eyes looked like they were boring a hole through the camera.

Casey involuntarily gasped and turned away. Severide sat on the edge of the bed and wrapped an arm around Casey's back and patted his shoulder as he inadvertently wound up with his face pressed against Kelly's chest when he turned. Casey had his eyes squeezed shut as if he was trying to block out what was happening.

"That's the bastard?" Kelly asked.

"The guy's name is Edmund Murtaugh, the ID we found on him had him listed as Richard Welker, he's the DOA you guys pulled out of the hotel fire."

"What?" Kelly asked in disbelief.

"He was arrested for assault and aggravated battery back in 2010. His DNA was taken at the time and entered into the system but it was never checked until the medical examiner took it during his autopsy."

Severide wasn't sure he got it. "Checked for what?"

Voight addressed the man whose back was to him, a series of unintelligible, terrified sounds forcing their way out of his throat, his whole body shaking like a leaf. "What this guy did to you, Casey, he'd done to several other men over the years..." he looked at Severide and added, "We're not sure how many, DNA's finally being run against cold cases nationwide, so far we got 9 from the tri-state area."

Casey writhed in Severide's grip and a bunch of incoherent noises that almost sounded like whole words were trying to work past his gritted teeth.

Voight continued, "Those 9 were before his arrest, after that he started covering his tracks, there are several open cases, no DNA but the rest of the physical evidence matches, all of them hit in the back of the head, kidnapped, their cars found abandoned, all of them tied up, raped, the hell beaten out of them, the bruising pattern matches..."

Severide could feel Casey trembling even harder against him now, the noises he was weakly trying to suppress were just about to pour over in full screams.

"This guy targeted Casey for a reason," Voight told Kelly, "all the victims were men, late 20s to 30s, single...all of them, paramedics, cops...firefighters."

A dry sob escaped from Casey's lips.

"The difference between you and the others, Casey," Voight said with a slight pause, "...is you're the only one that survived."

Severide's eyes widened to their limit. Casey's bottom jaw dropped and a long, body wracking sob finally tore loose, as if that was simultaneously the worst news he could've received, and also as though he had been expecting it and dreaded the confirmation.

Voight leaned over and rested a hand on Casey's back, he flinched under the touch but not much. "I'm very sorry for what happened to you, Casey, but you survived the worst of it, you'll survive what comes next."

Hank looked past Casey and made eye contact with Severide, who felt like reality just slipped away, he absently wrapped both arms around Casey's back and held him against him as Casey continued to shake and sob in response to this newfound information. The sergeant and the Squad lieutenant exchanged a wordless understanding: it was lucky for Casey that the hotel caught fire or he would've been the next cold case homicide.

"There won't be a trial," Voight broke the silence. "He won't have to testify, nobody else is going to have to know anything that happened."

Severide glumly nodded, and found himself saying, "Never thought I'd be glad somebody died of smoke inhalation."

The corners of Voight's mouth turned downward and his brow furrowed, "What're you talking about? Murtaugh didn't die from the fire."

"What?" Kelly asked.

Voight shook his head, "Nah, medical examiner said somebody fractured his skull and broke his neck."

Now Kelly really felt lost, and it must've been obvious from the look on his face.

"It was a shady place," Voight told him, "there was one other person staying on the 4th floor, he checked out before the fire, nobody's been able to find him, it's possible the two got into it over something, he killed Murtaugh and then was in the wind."

Severide took in a slow breath as he tried to process that thought.

Voight addressed Casey's back and told him, "I know this is a lot for you to deal with, Casey, but you're gonna be alright." He patted Casey on the back consolingly, then turned to leave the room.

Without a word, he walked past the seven firefighters who stood by the door and had heard the whole conversation, all of whose faces had become silent masks of horror as they realized the extent of what their lieutenant had been put through. After Severide chased Voight down the hall to Casey's room, everybody decided to follow after Kelly to find out what was going on, and if need be forcefully eject Hank Voight from the room, they'd all kept their distance at the doorway but none of them had missed the grim details.

Casey pressed his face against Severide's shoulder and continued to sob in horror at what had been revealed. Kelly rubbed Casey's back and slowly eased him back against the pillows, Casey turned on his side towards the edge to close the distance between he and Severide, he still hadn't been able to bring himself to open his eyes and actually face his best friend now that the truth was out.

Matt didn't so much hear Voight leave the room, but he'd almost felt the presence of the cop as he left, and likewise he felt the presence of several other people, and he knew it was the others from 51, and he could feel them standing around the bed hovering over him. Nobody said anything, but he knew they were there. At any other time he would've been mortified to have them see him like this, acting like this, perhaps in the dark recesses of his mind he still was, but he couldn't do anything about it, he couldn't stop shaking, he couldn't stop crying, he couldn't bring himself to look at any of them. After everything he'd been through in the last few days, he still feared what they would say to him, and he hated himself for it.

Nobody said anything. Instead he felt their hands on him, wordlessly offering him their support and love, and though he'd never thought about it before, he could recognize them all by touch. Boden gripped his bicep and squeezed it assuredly, Herrmann did the same with one shoulder, he could feel Mouch carefully patting the other, Cruz grabbed his hand and lightly squeezed it, Otis carefully rubbed the crook between his neck and shoulder, he felt Tony grip his shoulder blade and Capp's hand wrapped around the back of his head. Severide still had one arm wrapped around his lower back, and he felt Kelly's free hand stroke over his hair. Having the full support of everybody from the House was overwhelming to Casey and it just made him cry harder than he already was, then his whole body went into a series of spasms as he started hyperventilating. The hands on him tightened, and he heard a low soothing 'shhhhhh' as they waited for him to calm down, even without opening his eyes he knew it wasn't Kelly, it was Boden.


	4. Chapter 4

Kelly exited the bathroom with a wet washcloth and carefully washed Casey's face, the streaks of tears had dried up and hardened against his skin, then new ones ran down the same trails, and they had also dried up, and again, and again. Matt's face was about as red as his eyes were. Everybody else had left the hospital earlier when Casey finally calmed down and seemed to fall asleep, but shortly after they left, he opened his eyes, not quite wide awake but enough that he was up to talking, somewhat.

"I'm so embarrassed," he said in a weak, tired voice.

"Don't be," Kelly told him as he smoothed the rag over Casey's eye, "Casey, nobody can begin to imagine what you were put through."

Casey groaned and started to turn away, Severide pushed him back. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but if you do, we're all here for you, you know that."

Casey looked up at him with exhausted eyes and asked him, "Do you _really_ think you can take it, Severide? Knowing what happened?"

Kelly looked down at him, and just nodded. Though he wanted to assure Casey of his convictions, he didn't trust himself to talk at that moment.

Casey finally shook his head, "I don't."

"I understand," Kelly said, "but if you change your mind..."

Casey looked to the side and weakly nodded, then turned on his side to stare at the wall.

Kelly watched him for a minute, then put a hand on his back and rubbed it in small circles and told Casey, "I'm gonna stay here tonight."

Casey's back did a fair job of muffling his words but Kelly still heard them clearly, "You don't have to."

"I don't _have_ to do anything, you're my best friend, I'm not leaving you alone," Kelly told him.

Casey didn't say anything at first, though Severide could hear him swallow heavily a couple times. Then a quiet, "Thanks."

Severide moved his hand up to Casey's shoulder and rolled him back towards him to look at him. "Hey," he said quietly, looking him in the eyes, "I love you, buddy."

Casey looked up at him with tired eyes that could hardly comprehend what he was saying, but Casey forced himself up and hugged Kelly, then Severide heard a low hiss of pain force its way between his teeth.

"Easy, easy," Kelly told him as he helped Casey lay back down, careful not to upset his stitches again.

"Every single part of this is so degrading," Casey said, feeling his eyes stinging with tears of frustration.

"I know, I'm sorry," Severide looked down at him, "I wish you didn't have to be here, but I'm glad you are."

The gravity of what they'd learned from Voight hung in the air, it was still too horrible for either of them to speak about, that of all people, First Responders could be the chosen targets for such a horrible fate. It was something nobody ever liked to admit in the first place could happen or was actually possible, but the idea of it being their own people just made it all the more terrifying.

The two men looked at each other for a minute, and neither could speak. Finally Casey told him, "I love you, Kelly."

Severide laughed as he ran a hand over the top of Matt's head and smoothed his hair back.

"I'll be back in a minute," he told him, "don't go anywhere."

"Ha-ha," Casey dryly responded.

* * *

Everybody else had gone home earlier, deciding it'd be best to leave Casey alone and let him rest. So Severide was surprised to see Christopher had come back and was heading towards the hall leading to Matt's room.

"Hey Herrmann, what're you doing here?" Then Severide realized Herrmann had something tucked under his arm and asked him, "What's that?"

"Oh, well, I told Cindy about what happened, I had to, she knew something was wrong with him missing two days, but don't worry, she'll keep her mouth shut."

"Right," Kelly nodded.

"But I just told the kids that Casey got hurt and he has to stay in the hospital for a while, so my youngest had this idea to give him this," Herrmann held up a slightly weathered teddy bear, "to keep him company so he won't be lonely."

The sight of the bear and Herrmann's explanation had Kelly busting out laughing. "It's cute, Herrmann, he should like it."

"Hey, how's he doing anyway?" Herrmann asked as he walked over to Kelly.

"Uh, doing better," Severide answered, "he's exhausted...Will says his body's adjusting to the sutures and they won't have to replace them."

"Oh that's good," Herrmann sighed in relief, "I'll tell you, after I had my vasectomy-"

"Herrmann," Kelly said warningly.

"Oh, sorry...uh look, Severide, I _know_ I have a tendency to stick my foot in my mouth sometimes and I know this is not a good time for it, so maybe you should just give this to Casey for me," Herrmann said as he held the stuffed toy out to Kelly.

Another laugh escaped from Kelly as he nodded and took the bear and told Christopher, "I'll see that he gets it. Thanks, Herrmann."

"Hey, I hope he feels better soon, it ain't gonna be the same at 51 without him," Herrmann said.

Kelly just nodded in agreement. Herrmann turned to leave and Severide headed back down the hall.

Severide was grinning from ear to ear as he went back to Casey's hospital room with the teddy bear in tow. He held it up in front of him as he walked back into the room, "Hey Casey, look what Herrmann..."

He lowered the bear to see Casey's face, and saw that Matt was asleep in the bed. Kelly went over and watched Casey and determined that he was in a _deep_ sleep and hopefully wouldn't wake up anytime soon. He carefully set the bear down beside Casey's pillow, then went over to the vacant bed on the other side of the room to get some sleep himself, and like Herrmann, hoped that Casey would be feeling better in the morning.

* * *

Will Halstead came up to Kelly in the corridor the next morning.

"Kelly, I heard the news from Jay," he said, "the guy who did this to Casey is dead?"

"Seems so," Severide nodded as he got a drink out of the vending machine.

"Well, that has to be worth something," Will said, "though between you and me..." Severide leaned over so what Halstead said wouldn't spread too far, "if this _had_ gone to trial, I would've been very happy to testify."

"To what?" Kelly asked, "I thought you couldn't determine rape from a patient's injuries."

"The injuries themselves, no," Will shook his head. "You know, Kelly, we see a lot of sexual injuries all the time in this hospital, it's far more common than anybody is comfortable thinking about. Almost every week we get somebody in here who likes it rough, or they're inexperienced, they try something new, they got carried away, things got out of hand, suddenly they need stitches, or surgery, it's common but it's a very embarrassing experience for them."

"I would imagine," Kelly said.

"That's just it, Kelly, most of them _are_ embarrassed, to be here, and to admit what happened, and to have a doctor treat it...but somebody gets brought in like Matt, and acts like he does," Will grimly shook his head, "that's not embarrassment, that's sheer terror, and that doesn't come from any kind of consensual affair, and if need be, I would've been only too eager to explain that to the jury."

"Well, I'm glad that won't be the case, but thanks anyway," Kelly told him.

"I'll be in later to check on Matt, how'd he do overnight?"

Kelly shook his head, "Never heard him."

Will nodded, "Good to know, I'll see you guys later."

"Yeah, thanks," Kelly said as he headed back to Casey's room.

Matt was still asleep when Kelly returned, but he slowly started to wake up, and turned over, and his eyes bulged. "Severide."

"Huh?"

"What drugs they got me on? I'm seeing bears," Casey groggily commented.

Kelly turned back towards the bed and laughed, "Herrmann brought that for you last night, one of his kids sent it for you."

"Huh?" Casey looked up at him.

"He just told them you got hurt on a job, it's okay," Severide assured him.

Casey propped his elbow on the pillow and rested his head on his hand and looked at the teddy bear.

"Well?" Severide asked.

A hint of a smirk formed on Casey's face as he looked up at Kelly, "I like it."

Severide laughed. "How're you feeling?"

"I'll get back to you on that," Casey said as he turned over.

"How'd you sleep?"

"Okay. Did I get you up?"

"Nah, I slept like the dead." After a pause, he asked Casey, "You know that cardiac doctor here, Rhodes?"

"Uh...sounds familiar."

"I ran into him the other day. He was telling me about the guy that he worked under when he came here, Dr. Downey, very unorthodox guy. He was telling me about this time Downey chewed him out for going against a patient's wishes even though it wound up saving their life, told him if a patient believes that dressing their wounds in green bandages is more effective, they will dress them in green bandages...which coincidentally is how Downey woke up after surgery."

That got a small laugh from Casey.

"Oh, just so you know, Will's going to be in later to take a look at you."

"Kelly."

"Sorry Casey, I'm still not busting you out of here," Kelly told him, "you're just going to have to wait until Will says it's okay."

"Not that..." Casey looked down, "I need to talk to Dr. Halstead about...something."

Severide looked at him with concern, "Your stitches bothering you again?"

"No more than usual...I realize it's too late for them to do a...rape kit, and there's not much point anyway because we know who did it...but I need to see about getting some meds for..." even with his head down Kelly could see Casey squeezing his eyes shut.

Severide got it. "You think the guy had an STD?"

"I don't know," Casey shook his head, then looked up at him, "I've tried not to think about it...part of me doesn't want to know."

"But?"

"Kelly," Casey's voice started to falter as he admitted, "I'm scared."

Severide sat down on the edge of the bed and put his arm around Casey's back and rubbed his shoulder, "It'll be okay, Will will get you what you need."

Casey shook his head, "I'm already going to have to live with what that bastard did to me, the rest of my life...the thought of getting a disease from him that could kill me...having to take meds for that for the rest of my life...that's even worse."

"You're getting ahead of yourself," Kelly assured him, "There's plenty of time to get it taken care of, you'll be alright."

"I hope so," Casey replied, "that would be ironic, wouldn't it? Survive the attack of a serial killer, only to die because he gave me AIDS."

"That doesn't happen anymore, Casey."

"Yes it does."

"Not like it used to, and you're still getting ahead of yourself, you'll be fine," Severide told him.

* * *

Will looked at Casey and answered, "Yes, we can start you on antibiotics and antiretrovirals, if we _could've_ done a hospital rape kit, most of the former expenses would've been covered by your insurance."

"I don't care what it costs," Casey told him, "Just do it."

Will looked at him and thought for a minute and responded, "There is another way we could do it, it wouldn't _exactly_ be on the level, but officially there wouldn't be anything wrong with it."

"What's that?" Casey asked.

"So far CPD has not disclosed that your attacker is dead," Will said, "as far as we at the hospital know, it's still an ongoing investigation, so a rape kit would be conducted to try and identify your attacker."

"But you can't test for anything by now," Casey told him.

"I know, still, we start a rape kit, go through the motions, get you the antibiotics, backdate when the kit was done, hand it off to somebody we trust. After that all we'd have to do is get you the ARVs," Will explained.

Casey shook his head, "You can't do that, it'd be taking resources away from somebody who needs it."

"We don't actually go through as many kits as you might think, Matt, and unfortunately we have wasted our time and those resources on several false accusations before, so what's one more that's not exactly legit? At least this time we know it would actually be helping someone."

Matt thought it over for a minute, then asked uncertainly, "What would I have to do?"

"We'll take you to an exam room, take a few swabs, and get you your meds," Will told him.

Casey heaved in a sigh and slowly nodded, "Okay, let's do it."

* * *

Casey sat uncomfortably on an exam table in his hospital gown, on a paper cover that rustled under his butt every time he moved, and held his mouth open while Will took an oral swab. Even knowing they were just dummying up a phony rape kit, Casey still felt violated going through with it. He didn't want to think about the full procedure other victims had to endure.

"Now what?" he asked when the swab was removed.

"I'll get this bagged and tagged and we'll start on the next part," Will told him.

Casey was scared to ask what that was, he pressed his knees together and grabbed the gap at the bottom of his gown and looked around the room. He heard footsteps approaching and saw Maggie entering with a bottle of water and small medication cups stacked on each other.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Matt, here you go," she said as she laid the cups out on a stand beside the exam table.

"Thanks," he glumly replied. He fidgeted with the lid on the water bottle and asked, "What happens next?"

"Once you take your pills, you can go back to your room," she told him.

Casey blinked and shook his head, "I'm sorry, what?"

"The exam's over."

Casey looked back at Dr. Halstead and said, "We just got started, all he did was swab my mouth."

"Remember I mentioned backdating the kit?" Will turned around, "We took the clothes you were wearing, cut out samples to send for testing so we could find out as early as possible if they had your attacker's DNA, and kept the rest of them incase you did agree to a rape kit. Then when we got you cleaned up we took some blood samples to see if any of it is your attacker's, put that in as well, that way they can test for any STDs and also any medications for them, so we'll have a better idea what we're working with. Shirt, jeans, oral swab, blood samples, it's not a complete kit but it's more than most ever have."

Casey looked at Will, and at Maggie, trying to figure out what they were saying.

"We thought you might want a kit done, whether you got examined or not," Maggie said, "so we erred on the side of getting answers. We're proceeding with the medications because we haven't heard back on the samples yet."

"I..." he shook his head, "I don't know what to say...thanks...I..."

"We understand how difficult this is for you, Matt," Maggie told him, "we wanted to help, whether you'd accept it or not."

"Of course," Will told him, "you realize these meds won't work against _all_ STDs, you will have to come back for a followup exam to see if you test positive for any others."

Matt nodded glumly. "I understand."

"I know it's overwhelming," Will said, "but you're on the right track and we can whittle the possibilities down as we go along. You know I can't promise anything, but off the record, I'm sure you'll be fine."

* * *

Boden knocked on the door to Casey's room, "You up for a visitor?"

Casey looked up at him. "Yeah, sure, come in. Uh look, Chief, about the other night..."

Boden raised a hand and shook his head, "You don't have to explain anything to anybody, Casey, all you have to do is focus on recovering."

Casey nodded uncertainly, "Thanks, Chief."

"So how're you holding up?"

Matt opened his mouth, then closed it, and tried again, "It still doesn't seem real...I know it was, but I was going in and out of consciousness the whole time, parts of it just feel like a nightmare, I'm not really sure what all I remember, and what I just think I remember."

"Don't push yourself," Boden told him as he walked over to the bed and sat down in the chair next to it.

"I didn't want everybody to know," Casey admitted.

Boden nodded, "I know."

"Even knowing what Voight said, that this guy had...done the same thing to other First Responders...it doesn't make it any easier to accept what happened to me."

"I know," Boden said again, "but _you_ survived, that's what matters."

"But why didn't the others?" Casey asked.

Boden shook his head, "I don't know, Matt. I just thank God that you did."

Casey looked down at the sheet covering his legs, and tried to bring up the question that had been bothering him all day. "Chief...who uh...who was it that...at the hotel, who..."

"Does it matter to you, Casey?" Boden asked.

"I don't know," he confessed, "On one hand, I don't want to know...but I can't stop wondering."

"And you want me to tell you."

Casey looked at him for a minute and said quietly, "If I don't like the answer, I can always pretend I didn't hear it."

"Casey, why are you scared of knowing who found you?"

"I blacked out, I don't know what happened, but based on everything I've heard I can guess it wasn't good," Casey said, then he raised his hands to his face as he groaned, "If I knew, I don't know that I could face them."

"All you need to know is that everybody at 51 has your back, and if you let them, they _will_ help you get through this," Boden told him.

Casey nodded in understanding, "Copy that, Chief, thanks."

Otis came up to the door and stuck his head in and asked, "Is this a bad time?"

"No, come on in," Casey said, and noticed Otis had something behind his back, "What's that?"

"Oh well, I thought you could use a little pick-me-up," Otis held up a cellophane bag full of...

"Cookies?" Casey raised an eyebrow.

"Babba's secret recipe," Otis said as he handed the bag to the lieutenant, "she sent a package of them to the hospital when I had my tonsils taken out, far be it to say I was the most popular patient in the pediatric ward."

Boden chuckled at his comment. Casey untied the bag and looked in it, whatever was in them, they smelled good anyway. "Thanks, Otis."

"So how're you doing?"

"That question's going to get old real fast," Casey noted.

* * *

"You know if you don't eat this, they're going to be gone, right?" Kelly held up the bag of cookies that had hardly been touched since Otis's visit earlier.

"I'm not real hungry," Casey insisted.

"I noticed, Casey, you can't live off an IV, you know that, don't you?" Kelly asked.

"Oh I was just planning on doing it for a couple weeks," Casey lightly remarked.

Severide put the pieces together. "When the stitches come out."

"Going to the bathroom right now is definitely one of my least favorite things," Casey told him, "and most painful."

Kelly looked at him with a touch of worry on his face, "You know Will said if you're having any pain you need to tell him."

"I have pain every minute of the day, _look at me_!" Casey threw down the sheet to reveal the bruises on his body, "how am I supposed to know if it's a new pain or just an old one coming back?"

"Casey, calm down."

Matt folded his arms and clenched his hands under his armpits and said, unrelated, "I'm scared to to think what Otis told his grandma."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"Everybody's been coming to visit, and bringing stuff, and you'd think I was here to have my appendix taken out or something, but what is everyone telling everyone else? That's the irony, I didn't do anything wrong, and it's not my fault, but nobody dares tell anybody else about what really happened because it's still just too...what's the word? It's embarrassing for sure, beyond that, mortifying, horrific, there's got to be something, some word that sums up why we're scared to death to talk about this with anyone."

Casey groaned and moved to the edge of the bed. "Here we go again."

Severide helped Casey up and watched him limp over to the bathroom door and slam it behind him. Kelly sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed, he was trying to help Casey but he didn't have any idea what to do. He wished the two weeks were already over, maybe then things could start to get back to something resembling normal.

* * *

"Do I _really_ have to do this?" Casey folded his arms against his chest and focused on the tiles in the ceiling, and not on Dr. Charles sitting next to his bed.

"Believe me, Matt, this is the least favorite part for every patient," Daniel told him, "but I wouldn't be here if I didn't think it would help."

"I'm tired of help," Casey groaned.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Dr. Halstead explained the side effects of the medication I'm on, most of which are _not_ going to interact well with the stitches I was given," Casey dryly explained, "this whole process is..."

"Overwhelming," Dr. Charles took a stab.

"Dehumanizing," Casey responded. "I have a pretty good feeling even cattle get treated better than this."

"You know where cattle end up, Matt."

"Might not be a bad idea," he said.

Daniel took his glasses off and told Matt, "You know, in previous generations in other cultures, rape victims were referred to as 'worse than dead'. Not because of the ancient customs of worth based on purity or virginity...but because dead, the victims didn't have to remember what happened, they didn't have to live with it."

Casey made a small sound in his throat and said, trying to sound nonchalant, "Might be something to that idea."

"Matt, can I ask you a personal question?"

"That's your job, isn't it?" he lightly sniped.

"Do you know anyone who was raped?" Dr. Charles asked.

"No," Casey answered.

"How do you know?"

Casey turned to him to respond, then closed his mouth as he tried to figure out what Dr. Charles was asking.

"Do you think you _would_ know if somebody was?" he asked.

Matt's mouth opened and closed again as he tried to process the question.

"As I'm sure you're aware, most victims prefer _not_ to disclose their attacks to the people around them for various reasons," Dr. Charles pointed out, "and we know that 500,000 people are sexually assaulted in this country every single year. So out of a population of 320 million, and especially when you consider Chicago has roughly 2 and a half million people living in it, what would you say the odds are that you know somebody who was raped, but just don't know that they were?"

Casey took that in and after a minute told the psychiatrist, "I never thought of that."

"Once you take the taboo off of it, it's not so black and white, is it?" Dr. Charles asked.

"But it always will be, it's always going to be a subject nobody wants to talk about," Casey said, "now if we...if the victims aren't the ones that did anything wrong, why is it still like that?"

"Matt, there are a _lot_ of things most people aren't comfortable opening up about, and some of them I don't think how society responds would make any difference, even if nothing was taboo, there would still be things people don't want to talk about that happened to them," Daniel told him. "Some that probably you can appreciate because you've already lived them."

He thought about that. "Like my dad abusing my mom."

"For starters."

"And then her killing him."

"Not a popular conversation piece, is it? And _you_ weren't even directly involved."

"That depends on who you ask," Casey responded. "Am I really going to have to do this when I get discharged?"

"I would highly recommend it," Dr. Charles said, "and I can recommend some people if you'd like."

"Whatever," Casey shrugged. "Boden already made it clear I can't come back to shift if I don't comply with seeing a therapist, why the hell is he doing this to me?"

"Well, getting psychiatric help won't stop all flashbacks and triggers, but it will help you learn to cope with them. How many hotel fires have you responded to that were similar to the one you were kept in?"

Casey shook his head, "I don't know, a few."

"And there could be others...and what happens if you respond to one and things start getting too familiar? Something takes you back to your attack?"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Casey snapped, "but I still don't like it."

"Unfortunately nobody said you had to," Dr. Charles pointed out.

Casey closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said with a frustrated groan, "I want to go home."


	5. Chapter 5

Severide returned to Med with a change of Casey's clothes, for whenever Dr. Halstead was willing to discharge him. He hadn't liked the idea of leaving Casey alone, so he asked Capp and Tony to stay with him and make sure nothing happened. That said the room was surprisingly quiet as he walked down the hall. He looked in and saw Capp sitting by the bed, Tony leaning against the wall, and Casey on his side asleep in the bed.

"How'd it go?" Kelly quietly asked as he entered the room.

"He just fell asleep half an hour ago," Tony answered.

"He eat?" Kelly asked.

Capp pursed the corner of his lips together and moved his wrist in a 'so-so' motion.

"I'll take it from here, thanks guys."

"Anytime, Kelly," Tony said as they walked out of the room.

Severide just put his bag on the extra bed when he heard Casey move and then his voice, "Good, they're gone."

Kelly spun on his heel and saw Casey sitting up in the bed, wide awake, he turned and looked at Kelly and told him, "The next time you rotate, I want a different babysitter."

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

"Look Severide, I don't mind Capp sticking his tongue through my newspaper to cheer me up, that's just Capp being Capp," Casey told him, and added in a very unamused tone, "But I _do_ have a problem with him trying to feed me all the while making motorboat noises."

It was so random a comment that Severide's brain couldn't even comprehend what Casey was saying. He squinted both of his eyes and asked, completely cluelessly, " _Huh_?"

Casey glared at him as he said cynically, "Somebody who shall remain nameless made it known that I wasn't eating, so when the orderly brought in lunch, Capp tried to spoon feed me all the while doing this," and blew a razzberry straight in Kelly's face.

Severide maintained a straight face as he wiped his eye as Casey continued to rant, "All the while Tony's standing in the back saying 'just do it and shut him up'."

"That doesn't _quite_ sound like something they'd do," Severide commented.

"Take me home," Casey begged him.

"I'm working on it," Kelly said, "I stopped by your place, got you a change of clothes. Oh by the way, I found out something."

"What?"

"Well they got your truck back, it's back at your place, it looked like you got a parking ticket under the windshield wiper, there was a message on the back, apparently Voight took the courtesy of having your locks changed, and he stuck the new keys in the mailbox," Kelly took two keys on a ring out of his pocket, "That's how I got inside."

"Voight?" Casey asked.

"Yeah, apparently they were able to retrace..." Severide stopped before he said something they might both regret, "Anyway, they found your wallet and everything that was in it."

"I guess that's a relief," Casey said dryly, "Five hours I won't have to spend on the phone getting everything replaced."

"Are you sure you feel up to getting out of here?" Kelly asked.

" _Yes_ dammit, I want to go home!" Casey yelled at him.

"Okay, take it easy, I'll go find Will and see if we can do that," Kelly told him.

* * *

"Your discharge papers are in order," Will told Casey, "now when the stitches start to absorb into the skin, there will be more inflammation, there'll be some temporary discomfort, but if you have any problems, just come back and see me."

"I won't," Casey said as he put on his jacket.

"He _will_ , I'll see to it," Severide assured the doctor.

"Matt," Will said, "again, I'm very sorry for what you had to be put through, but I hope you will continue getting psychiatric help once you're back home."

"I don't really have a choice, do I?" Casey sniped.

Kelly let him go on ahead since he was driving Casey home, and he told Will, "I'm sorry about that."

"No, it's alright, it's all part of the process," Will said, "first you try and push everyone away, until you realize you need them around you. Just make sure he knows he's not alone."

"We will," Kelly assured him, and went to find Matt.

* * *

Matt had practically burst through the door of his apartment, glad to be out of the hospital, glad to be home, then he suddenly stopped, and froze. He stood at the doorway to his bedroom and found himself just staring in at the double bed in the middle of the room, and found himself unable to move his feet. In the hospital he had tried not to think about what had happened to him in that hotel room, now he felt a floodgate of memories surging back, a lot of them weren't clear but the sensation that hit him had him one step away from turning and running. His face felt hot, his heart was racing, he could hear his breathing becoming anxious panting like he was winded.

 _Everything was foggy as he opened his eyes, he couldn't see much of anything yet, but he could feel a sheet and mattress under him. Where was he? He moaned, but the sound hardly came out, he realized something was covering his mouth and he couldn't open it. He reached for whatever it was, but he felt something jerk his wrists, his hands were tied to something over his head. What the hell was going on?_

 _Suddenly he heard a voice. He couldn't make out the words, but somebody was in the room talking. Then he felt a callused hand against his hip and he recoiled from the touch as he realized he was naked. He tried screaming but it just came out muffled through his gag, hardly making any noise at all. He thrashed around on the bed trying to break loose, realizing that his feet were tied up as well, he struggled harder, still he couldn't get loose. That same voice was laughing, Casey stopped struggling, the sound of that laugh made his blood turn to ice water in his veins, this, he realized, was the sound of evil._

 _He felt that same hand on his body again, trailing around to his back, then lower, and Casey screamed as he realized what was about to happen. Then he screamed again as he felt something hit him in the back. He was hit again, and it hurt his spine to move, he heard the springs of the bed creak in protest as the weight of another person was added to it, then when the real pain started, Casey forgot about his spine and thrashed as hard as he could to try and break loose, all to no avail. Sometime during it all, he realized that the more he struggled, the more amused his attacker seemed to be. Despite this revelation, he couldn't bring himself to stop struggling, not of his own doing anyway. It was only later when he gradually lost all strength and energy that he finally stopped struggling. A few times he had help to stop, during his attack he felt a pair of hands on his neck squeezing, and after a while things started to get black. When he woke up again he was crying, weakly, he'd lost too much energy for even that. It was hard to think, most of what he did was a blind response, but several times during his attack, the only steady thought running through his mind was 'let it stop, let it stop, please God, let it stop'._

"Casey."

"Huh?" Matt turned with a jerk and just about yelped. Severide was standing five feet away from him in the living room.

"Do you want to stay at my place tonight?" Kelly offered. "Just to adjust to being out of the hospital?"

No, he did not. He knew what Kelly was really trying to say, and the answer was no, he didn't want to go stay at Severide's so he could babysit him to make sure he didn't do something drastic or stupid. Nobody had to say anything, he knew what everybody was thinking, he knew it himself, being attacked had made him weak, he was a grown man in his 30s and he couldn't even handle setting foot in his own bedroom, what the hell was wrong with him? Whatever it was, he had to figure it out himself, he did _not_ want to go stay at Severide's apartment. But another look towards the bedroom told him there wasn't any way he was spending the night in his own bed, which he had been so desperate to get back to all week. He could tough it out on the couch and work his way back there...he could...he couldn't possibly have any flashbacks, the guy that attacked him was dead, even though he'd taken Casey's keys, it didn't matter, all the locks had been replaced. There was no way anybody could get into this apartment tonight, he had nothing to worry about, but against his better judgment, he found himself nodding in response to Severide's question, and he hated himself for it.

Kelly walked up to him and said softly, assuredly, "Okay, just tell me what you need, I'll get it packed."

* * *

Severide looked out from the kitchen and saw Casey sitting on the couch, his head tilted back, almost completely asleep, which he'd been fighting off all night. Nobody knew what to expect with Casey coming home from the hospital, everybody just knew that somebody had to stick close to him at all times until they knew he was alright. They'd all talked it out with Boden to let everybody rotate on alternate shifts so somebody was always free when 2nd Watch was on shift.

While Casey had been in the hospital, Boden had asked Dr. Charles to come down to 51 and brief all of them on what to expect while Casey recovered physically and mentally from his attack. Dr. Charles had stressed that there was no typical reaction to rape, but gave them a rundown on things they could most likely expect. It had been an eye opening experience, and when he was finished, nobody could talk. Until finally, Daniel had asked if anybody had any questions, Brian raised his hand.

 _"Just one thing," he cleared his throat, "Is Casey really gonna be able to come back to work at 51?"_

 _Dr. Charles addressed the room and answered, "I don't see why not. Granted, it could be a few weeks, or even months, before he feels up to coming back to work, and when he does he's going to feel that he has something to prove, it would be very easy for him to push himself past his limits to prove the point he still has a place here. But in time, with therapy and a strong support system, which he clearly has in this House, yes, I think he'll be able to return to work and resume his duties as a firefighter. You have to realize though it could be very easy for him to flashback, so many different things could trigger the memories of his attack, the way somebody talks, a scent, the color of the furniture or the wallpaper in a room you enter, since the hotel burned to the ground there is no way to know what all he was exposed to and what could trigger him. That's why it's vital that he continues to get therapy, so he can learn to move past his attack, instead of repressing it, which only guarantees it will come pouring out somewhere when least expected. And fair warning, it's very likely he'll come to resent everybody's attention, and he will do what he can to push everyone away, but it's important to remember that's when he's going to need your support the most. You all have history, he could easily lash out, trying to hurt all of you as much as he's hurting from his attack, and he knows all of you well enough to know where to go for the jugular, but I'm telling you now, when that happens, the worst thing you can do is turn your back on him. It won't be easy, but I'm asking all of you to be there for him. Casey will benefit tremendously from therapy, but it can also be helpful for the friends and family of sexual assault victims as well to better understand how to help them. If anybody is interested, I can recommend some people."_

 _"Thank you for your time, Dr. Charles," Boden offered the man his hand, "I will take it into consideration."_

So, everybody was trying to figure out what the best way was they could 'be there' for Casey, Severide saw him freeze at the doorway to the bedroom and decided the best thing he could do was take his best friend home with him for the night.

"Casey," he said, and watched as Matt shot up on the couch with a start.

"What?"

"You ready to go to bed?"

Casey sighed, actually seemed to be dreading what was coming. He wouldn't have minded just crashing on the couch, but he knew that wasn't why Severide had invited him over, he _knew_ what it was Kelly had in mind, and he didn't like it, but if he was going to prove to Kelly _and_ to himself that he was fine, that he didn't need to be at the hospital anymore, he knew he had to do this. He got up from the couch and followed Severide over to the bedroom. Before they even went in, Casey noticed odd colored lights shining through under the door. Severide opened the door and Casey looked in.

"Do I even want to know?" he questioned as he saw a string of multi-color Christmas lights strung up around the window frame.

Kelly shrugged, "I got tired of kicking the furniture when I got up to use the bathroom. Last time I kicked the bedstead and broke the nail clear off my big toe. Took a year to grow back."

"Ouch."

"Understatement of the year," Severide said as he entered the room first.

Casey took a step past the threshold, and took a breath, then he took another step, and took another deep breath, he could do this. He slowly but steadily made his way over to the bed, and then just stood there.

Severide watched him as he got ready for bed. He preferred to sleep, when he wasn't in the company of a lady staying the night anyway, in just his underwear, but Casey seemed intent on sleeping in his clothes, whether it was to hide the menagerie of bruises on his body that were by now in various stages and colors, or if it gave him some sense of security and protection, Kelly didn't know, but he decided he'd err on the side of keeping his friend comfortable, so he just changed into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt for the night. The only thing Casey took off was his shoes.

Kelly watched as Casey just stood a few inches from the bed, and just _stared_ at it, as if he were expecting something to happen. He tried to see what Casey was seeing, and it occurred to him that his attacker must've had him tied to the left side of the bed.

"Casey," he said, breaking the silence. Matt turned his head quickly to see him. Kelly pointed and asked, "You want to take the other side?"

Casey turned back towards the bed and shook his head, "No…it's fine," he said, not even sounding convincing to himself.

Kelly nodded, he wouldn't push. "Okay, if you change your mind, just let me know."

Matt looked at the bed again, and told himself this wasn't the same, not the same whatsoever. He had vague recollections of stale sheets that felt like sandpaper and his neck sore from his head lying flat against the mattress with his hands tied up over his head. He felt the covers on top of the bed, they were soft, a light weight, and the headboard had pillows stacked against it like sandbags set up for a hurricane. Slowly he pulled the covers down, the sheets were soft, Egyptian cotton if he had to guess, he almost laughed, Severide did a good job of showing a hard exterior, but in his own home he was a creature of comforts.

Kelly went around to the other side of the bed and pulled the covers down and got in, and watched as Casey slowly climbed onto the bed, then reached behind and pulled down three pillows and stacked them on top of each other to rest his head on. He laid flat on his back and pulled the covers up, Kelly looked over at him, every muscle in his body was tense and stiff as a board.

"Casey."

"I'm _fine_ ," he snapped before Severide could even point anything out.

"You _look_ like a guy at the top of a drop tower waiting for the bottom to fall out," Kelly stated the obvious anyway, "calm down."

"I _am_ calm," Casey protested too much.

"Try to relax."

"I _am_ relaxed!"

"Turn over and stretch out," Kelly suggested, knowing Casey had spent most of his time in the hospital sleeping in that exact position.

Casey glared at him through one eye, but turned over, away from Kelly, and faced the wall, his head propped up on the three pillows.

Kelly watched Casey's back as he sighed. He reached over and cupped his hand over the back of Casey's head and calmly rubbed it, only thinking to ask after the fact, "Is this okay?"

Casey heaved another sigh and responded with a small shake of his head, "I wish you wouldn't do that."

Dr. Charles had told everybody in the briefing room that after what Casey had been through, otherwise completely normal forms of physical contact could be sensed as a threat to Casey, and could trigger a flashback, and it wouldn't be unusual for him to withdraw from any kind of intimacy, romantically or platonically.

Kelly wanted it clarified, "But is it okay?"

Casey surprised him by answering with a small huff, "Yeah, it's okay."

So Kelly didn't stop. He watched as a few minutes later, Casey bent his knees and sprawled one arm over the top pillow beside his head, but Severide knew he wasn't asleep yet. After a few more minutes, he felt Casey's entire body collectively relax, _now_ he was asleep, and Kelly hoped he'd stay that way for the night. He drew his hand back, turned onto his back, and closed his eyes.

* * *

It was morning when Severide woke up, he turned to the side and saw Casey was still asleep, in a different position than last night. So, best case scenario, it had been a good night, worst case scenario, Casey hadn't had any nightmares or flashbacks bad enough to actually wake him up screaming in the night. Either way it seemed so far so good. What they were doing was unconventional, weird to be sure, but there was a method to his madness and he was hoping it would work. He was hoping he'd be able to help Casey move on from what had happened to him. Kelly turned towards the clock on the nightstand and saw it was going on 8:30, and tempted though he was to just let Casey sleep since it was an entirely different experience to 'rest' in a hospital vs. doing the same at home, he decided Casey'd be better off if he actually got up and moved around.

"Hey," he said, and watched as Casey stirred, "time to get up."

Casey's response was a tired moan, followed by turning over, and pulling the covers up over his head. Kelly laughed and told him, "Sorry buddy, that might work in the hospital, but it won't do you any good here." He watched as Casey reluctantly pulled the covers back down and asked him, "Hey, you doing alright?"

"Fine," Casey grumbled.

"Hey," Severide said, "you are gonna see somebody, right?"

"Yeah yeah," Casey said with no enthusiasm whatsoever as he sat up, "Dr. Charles gave me the names of some people, I finally picked one, called for an appointment, first session's in a few days."

"Well that's good," Kelly told him.

"I don't want to do it," Casey replied, "talk to a complete stranger about what happened to me?"

"Well," Severide thought, "it might be easier than talking to someone you know."

"You're not helping," Casey told him.

"Sorry."

* * *

One night became the next day, and then the next night, and a couple more nights that Casey stayed at Severide's apartment and the two slept in his bed. After the first night Casey seemed to warm up to the idea and wasn't so reluctant. He tossed and turned a couple times in his sleep but other than that Severide hardly knew he was there, _except_ for one time he woke up because he felt Matt's body up against his and his arm wrapped around Severide's waist. He guessed that Casey never fully got used to sleeping alone after Hallie died, and while he was aware he should probably take it as a good sign that Casey was subconsciously _seeking_ some level of intimacy instead of drawing away from it, it was just _too_ awkward for him. Without a sound but his eyes wide open in shock, Kelly grabbed Casey's arm, peeled it off of his stomach and slung it over his shoulder, then reached behind him and lightly pushed Casey off of him. The next night it happened again, this time Severide's reaction was to roll Casey onto his back long enough for him to turn over so he was facing Casey, then he pulled the Truck lieutenant towards him and put his arms around him, a lot _less_ awkward that way.

After that, it was decided Casey would go back to his own apartment, but Kelly would go with him, and they'd try it again, this time in his bed. This would be the real test, and Kelly hoped it would work.

The whole time Casey had bunked with him at his apartment, he'd slept with his clothes on every night, and it still didn't seem to be a habit he was going to break anytime soon. Severide was tempted to ask Casey if he wanted to switch sides this time, but decided against it. Casey knew what he was doing, and knew what it was he had to prove to himself. He stood back and watched and waited. Again, there was some initial hesitation, but this time at least Casey had been able to enter his bedroom, and actually reach the bed before he started reacting. He breathed in, and pulled down the covers, and crawled in on the left side, so Kelly went around and slipped in on the right.

"You want to leave the lights on?" Kelly asked.

Casey shook his head, "No, it's fine."

That remained to be seen, but Kelly would go along with it. He reached over and shut off the lamp by the bed, and the whole room was plunged into darkness. The only time Severide regularly slept in total darkness anymore was in his quarters at the firehouse, it wasn't enough to keep this from being a somewhat alien experience for him now.

"You okay?" he asked Casey.

From the other side of the bed he heard a low, "Yeah." Casey sounded somewhat more convincing now than he had the first night at Kelly's apartment.

Kelly heard the rustle of the sheets as Casey pulled the covers up and moved around under them, he himself pulled them up to his chin and tried to get settled for the night. Casey's bed was very different from his, the mattress was older and had a few dips, the sheets were cold, he turned on his side to get comfortable, after a few minutes his body adjusted to it, he listened to Casey's breathing, not asleep yet, but close if he had to guess. He closed his eyes and waited to fall asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

The first night passed with no incidences. When Severide woke up it was morning, he turned over and saw Casey laying facedown with his face buried in the pillow, he took that as a good sign, still, Kelly didn't want the whole thing to backfire, so he'd stick around for a couple more nights. He'd already talked to Boden about taking off the next couple shifts to stay with Casey, to really sell it he'd stressed the idea of making sure somebody was with him if he had any further complications with his stitches, because they both knew if he did, he _wouldn't_ go back to the hospital of his own volition. Boden had called in a replacement Squad lieutenant for the week, so Severide was free to just hang around the apartment and make sure Casey was doing alright.

Though Kelly knew that Casey could suffer a flashback at any time, day or night, it wasn't the days he worried about, it just didn't seem as likely that there could be anything to trigger Casey. It was the nights he worried about, and always anticipated Matt waking up in the night screaming, reliving his attack. So far it hadn't happened, and he hoped it didn't, but he didn't want to be caught off guard if it did, because Casey could easily kill him before he realized he wasn't back in the hotel, and Severide knew this. The fact Casey's attacker had struck him, and all the others that he'd killed, from behind to stun them said plenty, if it had been a fair fight, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Though that reminded Severide of something he wanted to check on whenever he was able to get away from Casey for a while. He wanted to find Voight and ask him something that he definitely did _not_ want Casey to hear.

The second night back in his own apartment, Casey took a long shower and then walked into the bedroom, finally changed out of the clothes he'd come home from the hospital in, and wearing a pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt that showed the fading bruises on his arms. Severide looked at this and felt dumbstruck, he supposed this was a sign of improvement, but he decided not to mention it, he didn't want to share a bed with Casey if he was going to be on the defensive all night.

"Tired?" he asked.

Casey merely nodded as he climbed into bed. Kelly got in on the other side and gestured to the light, "Out?"

Casey nodded again. Kelly turned the lamp off and they were in the dark again.

Sometime during the night, Severide woke up because he heard Casey screaming. It wasn't a long scream, but it was enough to wake him up, and with the small amount of light shining through the blind slats from the streetlamps outside, he saw Casey shoot up in bed as he seemed to scream himself awake. Kelly sat up and reached over for him, trying to calm him down, "It's alright, Casey, it's over, you're okay."

He saw Casey turn his head to look at him, then he threw back the covers, jumped out of bed and ran for the door.

"Casey!"

Severide got out of bed and ran after him and just barely reached the doorway before he heard the bathroom door slam shut, and he heard the lock turn. He turned on the light, stood by the door and pressed his ear against it, he heard Casey breathing heavily, then heard the faucet running. He tapped on the door, "Casey, are you okay?"

No answer, just more labored breathing. Severide decided to leave Casey alone and let him calm down, but he didn't go far. 20 minutes later he hadn't heard anymore activity from the bathroom, so he padded back over to it and lightly rapped again, nothing overbearing or intrusive, just to let Casey know he was there for him.

"Casey, you alright?" he softly called out.

He heard the lock turn and stepped back from the door. Casey stepped out but wouldn't make eye contact with him.

"I'm so embarrassed," was the first thing he said.

"Casey..."

"It's _not_ what you think," Casey told him, and reiterated, "It's _not_."

"Okay," Severide said, hoping whatever it was he could be reassuring for his friend's sake.

Casey wandered back over to the bedroom and turned on the light as he passed by. He went over to the bed and sat down on the edge and asked Kelly, "Do you ever have falling dreams?"

"Uh yeah, I think everyone does," Severide answered.

Even now Casey couldn't bring himself to look at him. "Well the most recurring one I have is we're at a fire, I'm on the top floor of this building, the fire is out of control, I have no choice but to run to the window and jump...there's no aerial, there's no ladder, there's nothing and I just fall 10 stories to the ground."

Severide went over to the bed, and didn't miss the fact that Casey's skin was covered in gooseflesh and he was slightly trembling. Whether it was from the nightmare, or the cool night air, he didn't know. He also didn't say anything, he just pulled the lightweight quilt off the top of the bed and wrapped it around Casey's shoulders.

"Casey, we deal with fires on all floors of buildings all the time, sometimes we've _had_ to jump when there was no aerial, it's only natural to dream about it, what's embarrassing about that?" he asked.

"It's embarrassing because you're here," Casey told him, finally looking him in the eyes, "normally I don't have to explain it to anyone...they don't happen all the time, but I've been having them for years."

Severide felt sure what the answer would be, still he felt a need to ask, "You're not lying to me, are you?"

Casey responded, "Last time I had to tell anyone about it was Hallie...I thought I owed her an explanation for why I kept waking up screaming all the time."

Well that sealed it, Casey might lie about a lot of stuff, but never about Hallie. Severide reached over and wrapped an arm around Casey and pulled him against him.

"I'm sorry, buddy."

Casey shook his head, "This whole thing is a mess, before it's over I'm not going to have any secrets left." He pulled away from Severide and asked cynically, "Shall we get this over with? You be the shrink," he laid down across the bed, still cocooned in the quilt, and counted off in a monotonous tone, "I hated my father and wanted to marry my mother, I wet the bed until I was four and I got the crap beat out of me for it, my sister used to make me wear her old dresses..."

"Casey," Severide half stifled a laugh as he reached over and poked him, "come on, it's not as bad as all that."

"It's bad enough," Casey said as he sat back up. "Dr. Charles was right, if the son of the bitch had just killed me, I wouldn't have to go through all this."

"He said _what_?" Kelly asked in outrage.

"It came up during a conversation," Casey explained, "something about the way people used to view rape victims, dead their suffering was over, mine's just beginning."

"Casey," Severide didn't even know what to say, he pulled Casey against him again and hugged him tightly. He held him for a minute, felt Casey actually lean against him with hardly a sound, and asked him, "Think you can get back to sleep?"

He felt Casey nod against his shoulder. "One thing about them, I might wake up screaming, but it's not usually for long. I'm sorry I woke you up."

"It's alright."

* * *

The next night, Severide woke up and found Casey's side of the bed empty. The apartment was quiet at night, and he heard a sound coming from the bathroom that sounded like a hurt animal whimpering.

"Casey?" Severide made his way through the dark and saw the light shining through the crack of the doorjamb. The door was unlocked, he opened it and saw Casey curled in a ball on the floor, his arms folded tight against his chest as he cried. Kelly knelt down beside him and tried to get him to turn over on his back to see if he was hurt, but Casey wouldn't budge. Severide realized that this time Casey must've had a nightmare about his attack. He tried to slip his arms under Casey and pull him up against him, but Casey refused to move.

"What happened, Matt?" Kelly asked, forcing himself to remain calm. "What was it?"

Casey was too upset to answer, he pressed his knees tighter against his chest and continued to sob. Severide couldn't get him up, least of all not without Casey fighting him every step of the way, and he knew Casey didn't need that right now. So he sat on the tiled floor beside Casey, not saying anything to him, just soothingly rubbing his back slowly for the next hour as Casey wore himself out. About 4 o' clock Casey finally stopped crying and seemed to calm down, might have even fell asleep after a while, but Kelly wasn't having anymore of this.

"Come on, Casey," he said as he patted Matt's back, "it's cold on this floor."

Casey groaned softly and slowly worked his way out of the fetal position, stretching his legs as he turned over.

"Come on, we can go sit in the living room," Kelly told him.

Casey got up on his knees and shook his head, his voice was still choked with sobs though he seemed to be all cried out, "No...it's fine...I'm fine..."

"You want to talk about it?" Kelly asked. It never seemed to matter how many times over the years and how many different situations it was asked in, it always struck him as a stupid question. Anybody who wanted to talk would talk, they didn't need an invitation, but in all the years he'd never learned anything better to say, it could at least open the door.

Casey shook his head and said quietly, "No."

Severide groaned as he got up, his joints killing him from sitting on the floor for an hour. He reached over to the sink counter and picked up a washrag. "Let's at least get your face washed." He ran the rag under the faucet and told him, "If you don't, your eyes are gonna be glued shut by morning."

Casey half glared at him, his eyes red and exhausted, he reached for the rag but Severide told him, "It's okay, I'll do it" and washed his face carefully, just as he'd done at the hospital. Casey continued to glare at him as he did.

"I know you're exhausted," Kelly told him. "We can still get a couple hours' sleep." He put the rag in the sink and told Casey, "Come on."

"Kelly," Matt said quietly, his voice sounding almost panicked. He turned to Severide, "Kelly...promise me you won't tell anyone about this."

"Is this okay?" Kelly placed a reassuring hand on Casey's shoulder. He looked his friend in the eyes and told him, "I'm not going to tell anybody anything unless you want me to...what you're going through right now isn't anybody's business unless you decide it is. Okay?"

Casey looked at him, then closed his eyes, lowered his head, and slowly nodded.

"Okay," Kelly said soothingly, "let's go back to bed."

As they returned to the bedroom he turned to Casey and asked him, "You're sure about this?"

Matt nodded.

"You want the light on?" Kelly asked.

"No," he said quietly.

"Let's at least switch sides," Severide suggested.

Casey shook his head again.

"It's okay, Casey," Kelly told him.

"I'm fine," Casey weakly insisted.

Casey went back to the bed, and looked at it as if he wasn't sure, Severide stood to the side and watched him, waiting to see if Casey did change his mind. He didn't know what had happened, he didn't know how long Casey was lying on the bathroom floor before he woke up, but he was willing to do whatever he had to help Casey.

 _Green bandages_.

He didn't know where that came from, but it flashed through his mind. This was already widely uncharted territory for all of them, and he had no idea what the right way was to help somebody who had lived through such a horrible ordeal. But he was willing to try anything, no matter how minor or bizarre it seemed. He'd take the left side of the bed, he'd personally tuck Casey in if he thought it would help, he'd take the bedding out to the living room and fix up the couch so they could sit up watching TV for the rest of the night, right now nothing was too strange or awkward, all Casey had to do was ask, he'd do it because he wanted to help his best friend.

Finally, Casey climbed onto the bed, and rolled over every which way before finally settling on his side. Before he grabbed the covers, Kelly drew them up on him, then got back in on the other side.

* * *

When Casey woke up the next morning, the sun was bright shining in through the windows and he could hear the sounds of the city through the closed glass. He knew it was later than when he usually got up, but he fumbled around to grab the clock and felt his eyes widen when he saw it was going on 11 in the morning. He threw back the covers and jumped out of bed.

Kelly appeared in the doorway, "Morning."

Casey turned around and glared at him, "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

Kelly weighed his options and went with the safest response he could think of. "You're still recovering, you need to rest so your body can heal up."

Casey closed his eyes, scrunched up his face and ran both hands over it with a groan. "Last night..."

"You don't have to explain it to me, Casey," Kelly told him, "I get it."

"I hadn't been having any nightmares," Matt confessed, "I was hoping I wouldn't."

Kelly picked up on the insecurities Casey couldn't voice, and he told him, "Casey, nightmares are normal...this isn't a step back, it doesn't mean that."

"Then why didn't I have them before?" he asked.

"I don't know," Severide answered, "I just know it's not a bad sign. I know it doesn't seem that way, but you don't need to worry about it. Recovery isn't fast, but you just keep moving forward."

"I don't feel like I'm moving forward," Casey told him, "I feel like I just got knocked clear back."

Kelly stepped over towards him, looked him in the eyes, and told him, "We get knocked down, we get back up, it's what we've always done."

* * *

The next night, Severide woke up because he'd heard something. At first he didn't know what, but he looked over to the other side of the bed and saw Casey was face down on the bed, moaning and whimpering. He had both arms stretched above his head on the pillow, and his feet were rapidly kicking the mattress as if he were struggling with somebody.

"Casey," Kelly sat up and reached over and pressed his hand against Casey's shoulder and shook him to try and wake him up.

Casey groaned something half audible through his closed mouth, then his whole body jerked and he screamed. He pressed his head against the pillow and started crying in his sleep. No matter what Kelly tried, he couldn't get Casey to wake up. Casey just turned his head to the side, pressed the side of his face into the pillow and sobbed softly as his whole body went lax, the fight gone out of him.

Severide wasn't sure if he was going to make things better or worse but he felt he had to try something. He turned on his side, reached over with one arm and managed to roll Casey over to face towards him, and pulled him over to him, then drew the covers over both of them and held Casey in his arms, whispering assurances that it was all over and he was safe now, and that he wasn't going to let anything else happen to Casey. If he could actually hear what Severide was saying, he didn't let on, but Kelly hoped somewhere in Casey's mind it would do him some good.

* * *

The next morning, Kelly lay on his side of the bed and thought about a few things. When Casey stayed over at his apartment, there had been no nightmares, no flashbacks, no jerking up in bed screaming in the middle of the night. The first night back here things had still been good, then things started going to hell, why? He couldn't swear to anything, but he still wouldn't be surprised if part of the problem was Casey's bed itself. It was definitely not as comfortable as his own, in fact, Severide raised his butt off the mattress and pressed his weight back against it, there was a spring somewhere under him that squeaked every time he moved. He'd gotten Dr. Charles' lecture secondhand about triggers that could cause Casey to flashback, and if the bed in the hotel room was anything like this one, that would explain a lot. It almost sounded too simple to even be true, but he guessed anything was possible.

Casey had already gotten up earlier and was going about his usual morning routine, _somewhat_ usual anyway. About an hour after he got up, he went to the bedroom to wake up Severide for breakfast, and instead he saw Kelly dressed and on the floor by the bed, the bedding all tossed in one corner of the room, the mattress on its side against the dresser, and Severide was pulling the box spring off the frame.

"What the hell are you doing?" Casey demanded to know.

Kelly looked up at him as if just acknowledging his presence, and answered, "You know your box spring's broken?"

"What?" Casey couldn't even grasp what the hell Severide was saying.

Kelly got to his feet and told Matt, "Look Casey, I don't have any problem staying here and bunking with you, you know that, but this bed is killing my back. The mattress seems alright, but you _definitely_ need a new box spring...you know they don't even _make_ them out of wood anymore? They're metal and fold up like a cot now, get one of those and the mattress should set firm and even." He looked Casey in the eyes and added, "I'm begging you, I can't sleep on this thing one more night."

It took Casey a few seconds to figure out what Kelly was talking about, then he rolled his eyes and groaned, "Alright, alright, I'll see about getting another one later."

Kelly sighed in relief, "Thank you."

* * *

That afternoon the two lieutenants returned to the apartment with a new box spring from the furniture store, dragged it into the bedroom, took it out of the box, got it unfolded, got the material cover on it that preserved the mattress shape around the black crisscrossed metal, got it set on the frame, got the mattress replaced on top of it, and both of them fell on the bed to test it out.

"Ooh now that's nice," Severide said as he felt everything at the same level, and noted nothing was squeaking now.

Casey tossed and turned and flopped from one side to the other on his side of the bed and admitted, "That is a bit of an improvement."

Kelly smiled to himself, hoping that that meant Casey would be able to sleep in the bed now without flashing back to his attack, but he knew only time would tell for that one.

* * *

Casey and Severide kept the same sleeping arrangements for the next couple nights, during which time Kelly never heard him wake up screaming, which he took as a major sign of improvement, and he noticed Casey no longer had any reservations about entering the bedroom or going to bed, so he decided it was time to try something different. That night, Casey would sleep in his bed, but Severide would sleep on the couch in the living room, that way he would be there if Casey needed him for anything, but Casey would adjust to sleeping alone again. When the night actually came, Casey would've sworn Severide was more anxious about it than he was, he stopped in Casey's room as he was getting ready for bed, strictly to see how he was doing before turning in himself, but he stuck around several minutes and did everything but tuck Casey in and kiss him goodnight. Then he went out to the living room, and crashed on the couch, but he kept an ear open for any sounds from the bedroom. By the time he finally fell asleep, there still had been none.

In the morning, Severide woke up and the apartment was quiet, he crept to the bedroom, opened the door, and saw Casey laying on his side in the middle of the bed, apparently still asleep. Kelly stepped back and pulled the door shut behind him.

* * *

Casey had gone to his first therapy session with a new psychiatrist, and Severide waited anxiously to find out how it went. By the time he finally heard the door to Casey's pickup slam shut, he'd about worn a hole in the floor. He didn't want overwhelm Casey as soon as he walked through the door, so he forced himself to stay on the couch until Casey was in the room.

Casey unlocked the door, threw it open and slammed it shut.

"How'd it go?" Kelly asked quietly.

Turning around, Casey yelled at him, "It was the single worst day of my entire life, I'm not going back, I don't care if Boden fires me, I'm not doing it, you can't make me!" and with that he stomped off to the bedroom and slammed the door, leaving Kelly there in a stupor.

After a few seconds he finally put together what Casey was saying, and jumped off the couch with a pronounced, " _Hey_!" and went after him.

He stopped at the door and beat on it a couple times, then put his ear against it to see if he could hear anything. After a few seconds he heard the muffled sound of Matt crying, and Kelly's stomach dropped as a dozen different scenarios ran through his mind. He tried the door, it wasn't locked, and slowly opened it and saw Casey lying facedown on the bed with a pillow over his head, just like he'd done at the hospital. It was Severide's first instinct to go to him and find out what happened, but he knew in Casey's current state it would not be appreciated and he'd probably just beat the hell out of Kelly for getting too close to him, so, against his better judgment, Kelly backed out the room and closed the door and left Casey alone for the time being.

Half an hour later, Severide heard the door open and he was there when Casey stepped out, the half dried tears streaking down his face told Kelly he'd stopped crying a while ago, though every few breaths a small sob worked its way out of his throat. Kelly wasn't sure what to say, so he just stood there with his arms open, Casey took the invitation and latched onto him with all the strength he had.

"What happened?" Kelly asked him.

Another breath, another sob, though Casey's voice was strong enough as he answered, "I don't want to talk about it."

The worst of the worst ideas flashed through Kelly's mind and he wanted to know, "Did he do something to you?" He knew it sounded ridiculous but he'd also paid enough attention to the news stories over the years to know even psychiatrists weren't above doing horrible things to their patients, the scourge of the earth could hide behind any profession.

Casey tried to laugh, instead it came out as another sob, "Nothing like that."

Kelly pulled back enough to look him in the eyes and asked, "Then what?"

Casey shook his head, "I don't want to talk about it." He rested his head on Kelly's shoulder and told him, "I'm not going back...I don't care if they never let me be a firefighter again, I can't take it."

Kelly rubbed Casey's back consolingly and asked him, "When's your next session?"

"In a few days, I'm not going."

Severide merely nodded and responded, "Okay."

* * *

"Why the hell did you bring me here?" Casey demanded to know as they got out of the car and he realized Severide had driven them back to his psychiatrist's office.

Severide held up a hand to get his attention and told him, "Look, I know what you said the other day, but you have to do this, Casey."

"I won't-"

"Let me finish," Severide cut him off. "Casey you have to do this, not just because of the job, it's to help you."

" _Help_?" Casey exploded.

Severide pointed to the building and told him, "You said the doctor didn't _do_ anything to you, right?"

"Yeah but-"

"Do you want _me_ to go in with you?" Kelly asked.

"Oh ho," Casey snorted, "you better believe I _don't_. That's the _last_ thing I want."

"Okay then," Kelly pointed back towards his car, "then I am going to be waiting right here when you come out."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Casey asked with a groan.

Kelly looked at him and answered, "If I knew how to help you myself, I would, but I don't, I'm sorry, we need to bring a professional in on this."

Casey felt his eyes burning with frustrated tears that were just starting to form. "I can't-"

"You can, you will," Severide assured him, "And I will be right here waiting when it's over."

Casey looked at him for a minute, then turned away and headed for the door.

* * *

Severide sat behind the wheel of his Mustang and watched the front door of the doctor's office. He also checked the windows every so often just to make sure Casey didn't try something drastic to escape. It had been almost an hour, he'd forgotten to ask Casey how long the session was for. Maybe it wouldn't have been allowed, but he wished Casey _would've_ let him sit in on it so he could figure out what was going on. If the doctor himself hadn't done anything to Casey, what...

The door opened and Casey came out, looking like he'd just left the dentist with a root canal. Kelly sat up in his seat and got ready to drive them out of there. Casey threw the passenger side door open and got in, he wouldn't talk to Severide, he wouldn't even look at him. As Kelly started the car, Casey put his feet on the dashboard and drew his knees up towards his chest and pressed his head against them. Severide took the hint not to ask any questions, and just got them out of there.

They drove on in silence for a few minutes before Severide happened to glance over and saw Casey trembling with his head still pressed to his knees, Kelly realized he was crying again. He wondered what had happened this time, but he knew not to ask, instead he acted like he didn't notice, and just kept driving. After a few more minutes he spotted a vacant lot and pulled in towards it and stopped the car. If Casey noticed that they'd stopped, he made no sign of it, he never lifted his head up. Severide turned in his seat and reached over, wrapped his arms around Casey, and silently held him as he sobbed, figuring it was the best thing he could do for his friend right now. If Casey decided to tell him what had happened, he would, but it had to be on his own time, and in the meantime Kelly knew he had to be more patient with him now than he'd ever been with anyone before in his life.

* * *

"I hate therapy, why do I have to go?" Casey asked after the third session, sounding every bit like a child whining about school.

This time he'd actually managed to come home without screaming or throwing anything, he hadn't talked to Severide though, just sat down at the table and started on some paperwork. After a while Kelly realized Casey was tearing off sheets from the notepad, balling them up and tossing them into the wastebasket, then started writing on another one.

"What is it this time?" he asked as he went over to the table.

"This stupid exercise I'm supposed to do," Casey threw another sheet in the trash and pressed both hands against his head, "supposed to be a way for victims to get closure if their rapists are dead and they can't face them in court. You write down everything you would've said to them in a letter."

"That works?" Kelly asked.

"Not for me," Casey said, "I can't think of anything to write, it's a _stupid_ idea." Casey kicked one of the legs on the table as he pushed his chair back and stalked off to his room again.

Kelly waited until he heard the door slam, then he bent over and took the balls of paper out of the trash and unfolded them to see what Casey had written. Most of them were little more than run-of-the-mill 'I Hate You's and 'Burn in Hell's, the one he seemed to put the most effort in said 'I hate you, I wish you were still alive so I could kill you myself'. The one at the bottom of the wastebasket was the one that broke Kelly's heart. 'Why me?' Severide put them back in the trash, and went to the bedroom. Casey had his head shoved under the pillows again, but this time he was quiet and his breathing was steady, Kelly guessed that must be some improvement that he'd made it this far without the latest session reducing him to tears. He went over to the bed, sat on the edge, let Matt feel the shift in the mattress with his added weight, and carefully reached over and placed a comforting hand on his arm, and just waited. After a few minutes, Casey pushed the pillow aside and turned to look at him.

"I know this is hard for you," Severide told him, "but you're doing the right thing."

"That's easy to say when you're not the one that has to do it," Casey replied.

"No, but I have to see what it does to you," Kelly pointed out, "believe me, that's painful too, because I don't know how to help you."

Casey pushed up onto his knees and told him, "With everything that shrink's putting me through, I'm _glad_ you don't know how." He reached over and clung to Severide, his breathing was labored, Kelly could hear the tears building in his throat. He put his arm around Casey and stroked his free hand through Matt's hair and quietly murmured, "I'm sorry."


	7. Chapter 7

The next day Severide went back on shift, leaving Casey by himself for the day, and Kelly found the whole experience nerve wracking. Every hour or so he found an excuse to call Casey and check in on him; he sounded like he was doing okay, but then again he didn't have another session with his therapist for a few days. During a lull in between calls, he paid a visit to Boden's office to speak with the chief personally about the matter.

"If you saw what I see every time Casey leaves that office...I don't know how the hell this is supposed to be helping him," Kelly told Wallace, "he spends an hour there and by the time he comes out, he's too worn out to do anything except go to bed, he can't talk, he can't do anything."

"What his therapist is doing is making him go back to the time of his attack and relive everything that he remembers from the time he was conscious so he can deal with it," Boden told him, "it _is_ emotionally draining, if therapy was easy, there wouldn't still be a taboo on it 200 years later."

"But if he's still seeing that shrink by the time he comes back here-"

"We can presume Casey will not be resuming his duties as acting lieutenant for a while," Boden explained, "by which time he will have a better handle on this, and hopefully have begun to heal from it. In the meantime, all we can do is be there for him."

"The first time, he came home and swore he wouldn't go back, the only reason he is is because I'm forcing him to, I see what it does to him every time, I feel awful about it," Kelly said.

"Kelly, you know as well as I do the right thing is almost never the easy thing, it's the same thing you learn when you're a parent," Boden told him. "It's hard, but it's what Casey needs."

"What if it doesn't help though? What if he just gets worse?"

"If Casey thinks he is receiving inadequate psychiatric help he is well within his rights to find another doctor," Wallace said, "and we both know nobody can make Matt Casey do anything he doesn't set his mind to do. So the fact he _is_ still going suggests he _knows_ he needs to do this."

* * *

Severide took Casey to his next therapy session, then brought him home when it was over. Casey said nothing the whole drive back, but he looked like hell and Kelly knew anything he was seeing paled in comparison to what was going on inside his head. As they stepped into the apartment, Severide closed the door and told Casey, "Go lie down for a while and relax, I'll get you when dinner's ready."

Casey turned and looked at him with a confused expression and opened his mouth to protest, but Kelly cut him off.

"Take it easy and relax," he told him, "I've got this."

Matt sighed but didn't argue, he peeled off his jacket and went to the bedroom. Kelly heard the door close, and went to the kitchen to start on dinner.

Casey wouldn't tell him what was going on when he talked to the psychiatrist, and he could respect that, but he was having a hard time dealing with everything that was going on when he didn't know what had happened. So he'd decided the first chance he got, he was going to see Voight and find out what the sergeant had deliberately _not_ told them at the hospital. He'd only said that the guy who attacked Casey killed all his other victims, but he didn't say how, and until Severide knew what had happened to all the others, he didn't feel that he could fully help Casey to move on from it.

An hour later dinner was ready and he went to Casey's room to get him, he pushed the door open, and with the last fading rays of light shining in the window he saw Casey curled in a ball on his side of the bed, dead to the world. Kelly weighed his options, then went to the kitchen to put the food in the fridge for tomorrow. After that he returned to the bedroom, crawled in on his side and laid down beside Casey, and for the longest time just watched him sleep.

When Casey woke up it was completely dark, he turned over to see what time it was, and realized there was somebody in bed with him.

"Kelly?"

Severide took out his phone and used the light from the screen to illuminate his face, "Boo."

"What time is it?"

"Just after 9."

Casey laid back down and said with a tired groan, "So much for dinner."

"I put it in the fridge, we'll have it tomorrow."

Casey looked at him and asked, "So what's this? A step back? I've gone from sleeping on my own to needing you to stay with me again?"

"Nah, I just thought you could use some company," Kelly told him.

Casey pressed half his face against the pillow and stared at him through one eye and responded, "You better watch it, Severide, I could get used to this."

Kelly just laughed in response. He reached over and placed a hand on the back of Casey's head, but he pushed it away, and turned on his other side, and told Severide, "I wish you'd stop being nice to me."

Kelly laughed again and asked, "Since when is that something to complain about?"

Casey turned back over and answered, "Because I know what it means. You _never_ acted like this before...before my...attack...you're scared I can't be treated normally anymore."

The smile was gone from Severide's face and a vexed frown took its place. "What're you talking about?"

"Come on, Kelly, I know you, you think I'm going to go to pieces..." the self deprecation in his tone was audible as he added, "just like I have been ever since it happened."

"Nobody thinks that, Casey."

"I'm not stupid, Kelly, I know what's going on, everybody whispering behind my back because they don't have the guts to say to my face they think I'm suddenly too fragile to be trusted alone."

"That's _not_ what's going on," Kelly replied, "Casey, nobody thinks that."

"Yes they do," he insisted, "when that beam fell on me, everybody wasn't huddled around me like they have been now. They're too scared to talk about it to my face, but I know what they're thinking, because of what happened to me, what I _let_ happen to me, that I'm too _weak_ to come back as a firefighter, that I can't handle it."

"You're wrong," Kelly told him. "Matt, you were there when Voight said this guy killed nine other firefighters, cops."

An involuntary moan escaped from Casey's throat and in the dark Kelly saw him raise his arms over his head as if protecting himself from a blow. That fact seemed to be more than he could handle. Severide took advantage of Casey's distraction and grabbed him, and pulled Casey against him, despite his struggling against him.

"Casey, listen-to-me, everybody knows this wasn't your fault, and nobody is questioning your abilities," Kelly told him.

Casey raised his head and said in a weak, scared tone, "I am."

"What?" Kelly blinked.

Casey heaved in a sigh and explained, "First day out of the hospital...I couldn't even set foot in here...how the hell am I going to go back to 51? What the hell good am I gonna be on a call?"

Severide felt his heart sink from his chest as he realized the gravity of what Casey was struggling with.

"Oh Matt," he said quietly as he hugged his best friend.

Casey struggled against him. "Let go of me."

"No," Kelly said firmly, "not until you hear what I have to say." Even in the dark, he saw Matt's eyes looking at him, and he told him, "First of all, we know you weren't the only victim this guy had, and we both know what it takes to be a firefighter, what happened isn't on you, or them, it has nothing to do with strength or weakness, he targeted them and he hit them from behind so nobody saw it coming, nobody had a _chance_ to fight back. Voight told us this guy had a type for his victims, single First Responders in their 30s, Casey, that could just as easily have been me when we went off shift, and if it was, and it was me they'd pulled out of that hotel room, and it was me that went through everything that's happened in the past two weeks, would you think _I_ was too weak to go back on Squad?"

Casey looked at him for a minute, then finally answered, "No."

"Matt, for three days nobody knew where you were, we didn't know what happened, we didn't know if you were still alive, I was starting to think I'd never see you again. When we heard they'd found you in the hotel, I couldn't believe it, it just seemed too much to hope for. Those two days we waited for the cops to call us with an update, _any_ update...I was never so scared in my life. I know the guy who hurt you is dead, I know he can't come back, and I know how crazy it sounds, but after what happened I'm scared to let you out of my sight."

"What?" Casey asked in disbelief. "Why?"

"I'm not worried that you can't do everything you did before your attack, what scares me is before this happened, I _never_ thought about it, now I'm wondering how many other bastards are out there that're just like him that we don't know about. That's why I freaked out when you came back from the shrink that first day screaming, that's why I've been going with you to every other session. I wasn't checking up on you when I went back on shift because I don't think you can be trusted by yourself, I was doing it because _I_ needed to know you were okay. _I_ needed to be sure nothing was wrong."

Casey looked at him in shock, and finally responded, "I didn't know."

"Casey, I _need_ you back on shift because I know there I _won't_ have to worry what's happening to you," Kelly told him, "it's just like when Voight was gunning for you years ago, I didn't doubt your abilities to protect yourself then either, but I knew in-house you'd be safe because he wouldn't be able to get to you through all of us."

Casey finally stopped trying to pull away, and he replied, "I never thought of it like that."

"Everybody's waiting for you to come back, and I hate that you have to keep going to therapy to do it, but if that's what it takes, you've got to do it, we need you back at 51," Kelly told him.

Even in the dark he was able to make out a small smile on Casey's face, he leaned against Kelly and returned the hug, then he pulled back from him, and it sounded like he was either laughing or crying.

"What is it?" Kelly asked.

It was obvious now that Casey was laughing, and Severide asked him, "What's so funny?"

"You," Casey answered.

"What?"

"You, flipping out because," Casey tried to breathe between laughs, "You thought my shrink was taking advantage of me." His voice reached higher decibels as he laughed harder.

Severide thought about it for a minute, then a small laugh escaped from his throat. "I guess it is kind of crazy."

Casey laughed until he couldn't breathe, from what little light was in the room Severide could see tears forced from his eyes as he caught his breath, and he told him, "You are a nut, Kelly." He reached over and hugged him again and told him, "And I appreciate that you care enough to worry, but I'm doing enough of that for both of us right now."

"You don't need to," Kelly told him, "you're going to be fine."

"I wish I was as sure of that as you are," Casey said.

"Give it time, you didn't just get up and walk away from the beam crushing your head right away either," Severide reminded him.

"Yeah but that was different, all they had to fix was my head, this time it's _in_ my head, and you can't fix that like a skull fracture," Casey pointed out, the worry evident in his tone again.

Severide didn't respond, instead he lay there in the dark and thought for a minute. Then to break the silence he asked, "You hungry?"

"I could eat."

"Good, let's go heat up dinner," Kelly said as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and got up.

* * *

The next day started off well, Casey was in a fairly good mood, Kelly thought they were heading in the right direction. He cooked lunch and he and Casey were starting to dish up. Casey still wasn't eating much even though the medications he was taking hadn't subjected him to much more in the way of side effects than a turned stomach, he still didn't want to press his luck, but he was eating regularly now that he was out of the hospital. Casey reached for a knife to cut his chicken with, and he froze and stared at the rack of knives on the wall over the stove. Something seemed familiar. He blinked, and in the split second his eyes were closed, he saw something.

 _A tray with knives on it_.

He opened his eyes and looked at them again, the picture was starting to get clearer.

 _Casey didn't know what time it was, what day it was, life had quickly become hell and there was no end. There was no sleep, there was no rest, there was no peace, there was only blacking out when the man who raped him strangled him to the point of unconsciousness, then let him revive, then it started all over again. He'd tried for the longest time to break out of his restraints but it had been in vain. All it had earned him was a lot of bruises, whoever his captor was, hit him when he resisted, sometimes with his hands, sometimes with objects, though Casey couldn't identify any of them by the impact of battering into his flesh. His tongue was thick and felt stuck against the roof of his mouth, it had been so long since he'd had anything to drink, he couldn't think straight anymore. He felt the sandpaper skin of his attacker's hand against the welts on the back of his thighs, he'd lost the energy to even struggle against it anymore. He felt like crying but tears had stopped forming in his eyes long ago, somewhere in his mind he knew that meant he was very dehydrated, but he still had no concept of how long it had been since he'd been brought here. He was so weak he hardly even cared anymore, about anything, he just wanted the pain to stop._

 _In between his attacks, he'd tried to thrash around and break loose, that hadn't worked, but it had never really occurred to him to look around the room, for what? If he could foresee any escape, maybe some details for the cops, but he knew there wasn't any way he could get out of here. And_ _knowing_ _that should've been the most depressing realization he ever had, but it hardly fazed him in his sluggish mind. But he heard the man behind him moving around, and it sounded like he was doing something. He turned his head to the right, and the man came over, and casually set something down on the nightstand, not that Casey could reach it anyway, even if his hands were loose it would still be_ _just_ _out of his reach._

 _A small tray with knives laid on it. There were half a dozen, maybe more, most of them had black handles, most of them had blades only an inch long or so, though two on the end were much longer._

 _Somewhere in his mind he instinctively knew what the knives were for, and he could feel his body shaking weakly. He was cold, he was starving, he was dehydrated, he was in constant pain, he was exhausted, any of these might've been the reason for the tremors. His brain felt too disconnected to even register fear anymore._

Casey dropped his plate and it landed on the counter with a loud clatter.

"Casey?" Severide hadn't seen what happened.

Casey backed away from the stove and said grimly, "I'm not hungry." And with that he stalked off to the living room.

Kelly waited a minute to see if anything happened, and when he didn't hear anything, he went to the living room and saw Casey sitting on the couch, looking half dazed. Severide didn't know what happened, and he didn't know what a good response would be. He settled for, "You want some company?"

Casey shook his head. "No, just...please leave me alone."

Kelly slowly nodded, "Okay..."

Severide retreated to the kitchen. He'd already got his lunch dished up, but his appetite just disappeared, still he sat at the table and ate a few bites while he waited to see what happened next and tried to figure out what it was he should do. Half an hour later he was still sitting at the table when he heard Casey's phone buzzing in the living room. He couldn't hear Casey's part of the conversation, just the low, muffled sound of his voice a couple times. Then there was nothing. A few minutes later, he heard Casey scream, and he jumped up from the table.

"Casey?" Severide ran to the living room and saw Casey on the floor by the couch, he looked like he'd collapsed. Severide fell on his knees beside him, "What happened?"

Casey looked at him and said in a low voice, slowly putting the words together as if he could barely comprehend them, "That was Dr. Halstead, they got the test results back from Murtaugh's autopsy."

Kelly didn't even dare think what the answer was going to be, he was too scared.

Casey looked up at him, and Severide saw one eye glistening with tears that were starting to build.

"...He's clean," Casey told him, and then a sudden laugh escaped him. There was no humor in it, but he started laughing hysterically as the gravity of the doctor's words sat with him. "I'm okay..." another set of laughs, then, "I don't have to take the pills anymore..." then a shrieking laugh, and the tears started running down his face as he continued to laugh darkly. After a while the laughter stopped and was automatically replaced with sobs as his chest started heaving and his whole body started trembling.

Severide took Casey in his arms and slowly rocked on his knees as he tried to make sense of what Matt had said. It finally dawned on him what he meant, and he felt like a sudden weight had been lifted off his chest.

"That's great, Casey," Kelly sighed in relief. He felt Casey's head pressed against his shoulder as he continued to cry, Severide looked towards the ceiling and smiled.

* * *

Kelly sat on the armrest of the couch and looked down at Casey, who'd fallen asleep on the couch earlier in the afternoon, and had been asleep for the last couple hours. After Dr. Halstead's phone call, Casey cried until he wore himself out, Kelly finally got him back up on the couch, where he fell asleep almost instantly. The look on his face actually seemed to be one of content, now that they knew Casey no longer had to worry about any diseases from his attack.

Severide watched Casey while he slept, watching every movement of his chest, glad that he was able to rest, but also waiting for him to wake up, and he couldn't suppress the grin on his face. Casey hadn't known it, but Severide had brought home the teddy bear Herrmann brought to the hospital, and when he knew Casey was out cold, he'd taken it out of his bag and mischievously slipped it in the crook of Matt's arm. He wanted to see the look on Casey's face when he realized what had happened, and he hoped his friend could get a laugh out of it.

Casey took in a particularly long breath and his chest rose higher than it had before, then he scooted over onto his side so he faced the back of the couch, he opened his eyes, and came face to face with the teddy bear again. Severide was practically holding his breath waiting to see what happened. Slowly, Casey turned his head so he was staring at the Squad lieutenant seated at the end of the couch, and had his eyes half open in an expression of curiosity, and said only in question, "Green bandages, huh?"

Kelly laughed and responded, "Well, Herrmann never asked for it back."

"You're a sick man, Severide, you know that, don't you?" Casey grumbled.

Kelly just laughed again.

Casey yawned and stretched and groaned as he slowly came around.

"Feeling better?" Severide asked.

Casey thought about it for a minute and then nodded. "Yeah, thanks." He shivered like a chill ran through him, and he told Severide, "I've tried _not_ to think about this, _not_ to deal with it...but it's one of the only things I've been able to think about...it's almost...almost worse than what I was put through."

But Kelly knew Casey wasn't about to tell him what that was. He wouldn't ask, but he had a plan to find out anyway. But that would wait for later. For the time being, he had an idea.

"I think we need to celebrate the good news you got," Kelly told him.

Casey grumbled and said, "I don't feel like going out and seeing the others."

"Then we'll stay in, but I've got an idea," Kelly said.

Casey looked at him and asked in a deadpan tone, "Why doesn't that make me feel better?"

* * *

Since Casey didn't have to keep taking the pills anymore, and any possible side effects would shortly become a thing of the past, Severide's idea of celebrating had been to order in pizza; he had also taken the liberty of having a few things delivered from the grocery store and banished Casey from the kitchen while he prepared dessert for them. Casey didn't have any idea what Kelly was up to, he just sat on the couch in the living room listening to the endless whirring of the blender in the kitchen. When he finally heard it shut off, he tilted his head back and called to the kitchen, "What are you doing in there?"

"I'll be out in a minute!" Severide called back.

Casey rolled his eyes and hit his head back against the cushions.

Severide finally entered the living room, carrying two tall glasses filled just short of the brim with something that looked like a watered down chocolate shake.

"What's that?" Casey asked.

All Severide was willing to say was, "I made these all the time as a kid, you're gonna love it."

That remained to be seen. Casey took one glass and sniffed it and picked up the scent of root beer, and a hint of vanilla. He took a drink and just about spit it back in the glass. He couldn't even tell what it was. He took another sip, root beer, ice cream, something else, he tried again, and made a face as he realized it was chocolate sauce, also marshmallow cream, and...he looked over the glass and couldn't see anything, but he would swear he was tasting maraschino cherries. He looked over at Kelly who just drank his down as if it was a completely normal beverage.

Casey managed to swallow another mouthful and asked, "Tell me something, Kelly, do you still have your own teeth?"

Severide smiled at him as he swallowed part of his and responded, "Yeah I know it's a little sweet."

"A _little_? You could go into a coma from that," Casey said.

"That's what my mom used to say," he remarked dismissively, "I drank 10 of these a week, nothing ever happened to me."

"And yet that would explain so much," Casey remarked with a cynical look.

Kelly scowled back at him.

"Seriously..." Casey put his glass down. There was no way in hell he could drink that whole concoction. "I appreciate everything you've done, Kelly, thank you. I know I haven't been easy to live with."

"Casey, all that matters is that you get better, and you've already come a long way."

"Yeah...but not far enough."

"It's a process, you'll get there," Kelly told him.


	8. Chapter 8

Voight came down the stairs at the 21st District and saw Kelly Severide standing by the front desk.

"Something I can do for you?" he asked.

"I need to talk to you," Kelly said.

"About what?"

"Ed Murtaugh."

Voight sighed through closed lips and shook his head, "I already told you what happened."

"Not all of it," Kelly went over to him, "you didn't say how he killed his other victims."

"Casey was in no condition to know about that," Voight told him.

" _I_ need to know," Kelly said.

" _You're_ not in any condition to know about that either," Voight shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Why're you here?" Voight asked.

"Because Casey's my best friend and I'm trying to help him."

Voight pointed a finger at him and answered, " _That's_ why not. You're too close to this, Severide, you don't want to know." With that, Voight turned around and started to walk away.

Kelly followed after him, "Look, Voight, you don't know what kind of man Casey is."

Voight turned around and asked, " _Excuse_ me?" There was a pause between them, then Voight added, "Maybe you don't remember so well, I made that man's life a living hell so he'd back off my son's case, and he _still_ put me in prison. I know very much what kind of man Matt Casey is."

"Well, not like I do," Severide added, "he had a building collapse on him, his skull was fractured, if it happens again he _will_ die, the doctors explained that to him in no uncertain terms, he spent 6 weeks out of commission because of it, he never once doubted returning to work as a firefighter. _Now_ he is, he thinks he can't do it, Hank, I _have_ to know what happened to him, he won't tell me, the only other person who was there is dead, you're my only hope."

"Depressing, isn't it?" Voight asked lightly.

"Look, Voight, I never ask you for anything, I'm begging you, I have to know," Kelly said, staring the sergeant dead square in the eyes.

Voight huffed and told him, "Don't say I didn't warn you." He looked around the busy room and told him, "Not here, come on upstairs."

They went up to the bullpen and Voight pointed Severide over to his office. Kelly shut the door and sat down, Voight sat behind his desk and leaned back.

"I'll do you one favor and I won't show you the crime scene photos," Voight told him. "The worst details of the murders were never released, part of that's just procedure, leave the most graphic details out, so if anybody ever confesses we can tell if they're lying or not. Another part of it is _nobody_ who works in law enforcement, or EMS or the fire department, wants _anyone_ , let alone the whole city to know, that one of their own died in such a horrible manner, they want to preserve some dignity for their fallen brethren, and their families."

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

"We talked to the medical examiners, all had the same stories, all victims were hit in the back of the head, abducted, raped and tortured for up to 72 hours before death, and each time, there were several cuts and lacerations on the victims' bodies, all medical examiners speculated by blades of various sizes and styles."

Kelly squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out that image, then he opened them again and said, "Casey was bloody when they found him but he wasn't cut."

"Apparently something interrupted him before he got that far," Voight said, "did the firemen who found Casey say anything about a set of knives in the room? Anything like that?"

Kelly shook his head.

"So Casey got _very_ lucky," Voight said. "The first case, the first medical examiner had it pegged as a first time killer, because the cuts were jagged and uneven, thought it was hesitation marks. When the second and third bodies turned up, they had the same marks, then the ME realized they weren't hesitation marks, it was because the victims struggled when he cut them. He had their hands and feet tied, this we know because they all had those same ligature marks, but there were no restraint marks across the bodies, so they weren't fully tied down, so they were still able to struggle, which every criminal profiler figured was part of the thrill for him, watching them try to fight. The way they had it figured, he was only interested in them as long as they _could_ struggle, 3 days with no food or water, they lost the energy to fight, they weren't of any further use to him, he got bored with them, so he killed them."

"Casey was already unconscious when they found him," Kelly realized.

Voight nodded grimly, "He got lucky, but his time _was_ running out. If that hotel hadn't caught fire..."

Severide closed his eyes and tried not to think about that. Then he opened his eyes and realized, "But they didn't die from that."

Voight shook his head, "No they didn't. When he finally killed them, he either broke their neck, or shot them in the head." He saw the look on Kelly's face and added, "I _told_ you you didn't want to know."

"But...how could nobody in the hotel hear what was going on? There had to be witnesses, somebody had to have heard something, known something."

"Murders are committed in hotels more often than you think, Severide," Voight told him. "That urban legend, the dead body stuffed under the bed...not just a story, it happens. Depending on the hotel, people make a habit of not seeing, or hearing, or knowing anything, others are largely vacant so there's nobody around to hear anything. Only one other room on that floor was occupied at the time, we don't know how well the sound traveled through the walls."

Severide slowly took it all in and looked like he was going to be sick.

Voight explaind to him, "Something like this, the experts who profile killers for a living, they tend to say stuff like the overkill is personal, that you'd look for suspects in people who tried to become a First Responder who didn't make the cut, stuff like that...that's why nobody knew who was behind it, because they did look, and this guy has nothing of the sort on his record whatsoever. Never joined the fire academy, never joined the police academy, never even signed up for the army."

"So why did he do it?" Kelly wanted to know.

"Asking the wrong person, all I do is find out who they are, get a confession, and lock them up," Voight said, "we know nobody just wakes up one day and does something like this, but Murtaugh was smart enough to keep himself off the radar for years, this is not the garden variety sociopath we _normally_ deal with. We're just lucky whoever killed him did. As a cop, I'm supposed to want to see all these bastards rot in prison...the people at stake in this case, he's better off dead, gives the families a little more closure."

* * *

Severide didn't remember leaving the 21st District, he didn't remember getting his car and he didn't remember driving back to Casey's apartment. It just seemed that he was there. He sat in the car staring at the front door for the longest time, without any idea why. He looked around and saw Casey's pickup parked at the curb and took that as a good sign. He got out, ran up to the door, all but forced the door open and stepped in, and called out, "Casey?" He didn't see him anywhere but he knew Matt must be nearby, he called again, unaware of how desperate his voice sounded, "Casey!"

Casey came out of the kitchen with a puzzled look on his face. "What is it?"

Kelly didn't say anything, he just put his arms around his best friend in a bone crushing hug and knocked the wind out of Casey. Matt just stood there, very confused. He put his hands on Severide's shoulders to try and push away from him, but with no luck. Finally he thought to ask, "What's wrong, Kelly?"

Severide maintained a tight hold on his best friend, and finally answered, sounding exhausted, "I'm just glad that you're alright."

Casey didn't get it, but he decided not to question it, and instead reciprocated the hug, the two of them stood there in complete silence for several minutes.

* * *

The first day after the next shift, Severide went to Chicago Med and headed to Dr. Charles' office, the psychiatrist was in and Kelly asked him, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Daniel looked up from his desk and took off his glasses, "Kelly Severide, come on in. What's on your mind?"

"It's about Casey, I was hoping you could help me," Kelly said as he sat down.

"What's going on?"

"Okay...when he got discharged from the hospital, he stayed with me for a few days, and he was fine...no flashbacks, nothing like that...then we went back to his apartment, and almost every night for a while he started having nightmares about his attack, he starts screaming and crying and he can't stop, he's worried that it means he's getting worse, and I don't know what to tell him."

"Uh huh," Dr. Charles took that in, "did he have any such episodes when he was still in the hospital?"

"Only when we found out that he'd killed his other victims, other than that," Kelly shook his head.

"And nothing while he was staying with you?"

"No."

"How long was that?"

"A few days."

Daniel nodded, "Casey was severely dehydrated when he was brought in...his rapist didn't give him anything to eat or drink for three days, correct?"

"Yeah."

"And we can gather from the bruises on Matt's neck, that he was unconscious for at least part of his attack, how much of it we don't have any way of knowing."

"What's it all mean?" Kelly asked.

"Kelly, are you familiar with the 7 stages of grief?" Dr. Charles asked.

Kelly looked at him blankly for a minute, then he blinked, "Yeah, I think so, denial, guilt, anger, so what?"

"Sometimes in people's lives, traumatic experiences that don't involve death still require a grieving process to fully and healthily move on from," Dr. Charles explained. "It's very possible that Matt wasn't able at the time to process what was happening to him because he was deprived of food, water and air for we don't know what amount of time. He was not open to anybody about his assault while in the hospital, possibly trying to repress what happened but more likely slowly coming to terms with what happened, remembering a little more each time. Now that he's so far past the attack, he has time to actually think about what happened, and he can now express all the emotions that he was not able to at the time, where before it may all have seemed unreal or like a dream, now it's just starting to hit him that it was in fact very real, and possibly only now can he appreciate how close he came to dying. It's hard to deal with, but it's _not_ a step back, people who live through such trauma and _don't_ have any such episodes, those are the ones I would be concerned about because it strongly implies that there's nothing left in them. That Casey remembers what happened, and it affects him this much, he's still there. It's a hard lesson to learn, but definitely one worth knowing."

"I see, I guess," Kelly said, "but what do I do?"

"Aside from offering your physical and emotional support, there's not much you can do," Dr. Charles told him, "he has to exorcise these demons for himself to get anywhere."

Kelly nodded, and got silent for a moment, and told the psychiatrist, looking down at his desk instead of up at him, "I think I did something dumb."

"What's that?" Dr. Charles asked.

"Well, that's kind of a long story, it started when Casey was in the hospital and Herrmann brought this teddy bear for him that had belonged to one of his kids."

Kelly proceeded to explain to Dr. Charles about Casey's apparent 'inferiority complex' that had him doubting his own abilities to return to 51 as a firefighter.

"He's worried that everybody's going to treat him differently now, you know, kid gloves so he doesn't fall apart, he's worried that nobody respects him now," Kelly said, "and I think I made it worse."

Dr. Charles took all of this in with little more than a nod, then he asked Kelly, "Where is the teddy bear?"

"Still at the apartment."

"Where?"

"In the bedroom."

"And he hasn't gotten rid of it?"

Kelly shook his head.

"Kelly, do you know why giving kids stuffed animals and dolls to sleep with is such a popular idea?" Dr. Charles asked.

Kelly just shook his head again.

"Because it works," Dr. Charles told him. "Nobody knows what it is, nobody can explain how it works, but it works, kids have these things for bed precisely because it helps them fall asleep. No matter their age, they inherently _know_ these toys aren't alive, but they're a comfort, they still give off a feeling of somebody being with them. Believe me, there are a lot of doctors out there who wish their adult patients could adopt the practice so easily, instead of turning to pills to get through the night."

"I just thought he'd get a laugh out of it, but I think it's making him worse...I think...I know it sounds weird, but I think it's hurt his ego," Kelly said.

Dr. Charles considered that and told Severide, "The road to hell often _is_ paved with good intentions...if you really think that this has created a problem, talk to Casey about it. If he confirms it, take the bear away, if not..." Daniel shrugged, "what harm in keeping it around? It may actually prove to be therapeutic for him."

"Somehow I doubt that," Severide said, "and how do I talk to him about this?"

"You two have been friends for a long time, I'm sure you can find a way," Dr. Charles said. "You seem to know Matt about as well as anybody...maybe better."

* * *

Kelly entered the apartment, closed the door and leaned against it with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. He wasn't sure about this.

"Casey?" he called out.

There was no response. Kelly turned to look out the door, Casey's pickup was still parked out there, so he had to be home.

"Casey?" Kelly made his way over to the kitchen. Nothing.

He tried not to panic, despite the thoughts that were suddenly racing around in his head. He forced himself to stay calm until he'd checked over the whole apartment. Fighting the anxiety that was coursing through his body, Severide forced himself to walk over to the bedroom and look in. He reached the doorway, pushed the door open, and stopped, and felt his eyes bulge.

Casey was facedown on the bed asleep, that wasn't what caught Kelly offguard, what did was that Casey had the teddy bear in question, and had half of it shoved under his head like a pillow and had the other half loosely gripped in his arm. Severide stood in the doorway for several seconds unable to move, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing, then he slowly and quietly backed out of the room and pulled the door shut behind him.

* * *

Casey sat at the kitchen table, his head down, his eyes staring down at something, he hadn't made eye contact with Severide since he entered the room, and he hadn't said a word to him. Kelly got dinner ready, then went to wake Casey up, concerned that Matt had slept apparently all afternoon. Casey woke up and realized two things, one, Severide was staring down at him, two, he still had the teddy bear in his grasp. He hadn't said a word, just looked at Severide with a horrified expression on his face, Kelly hadn't said anything, not having any idea what _to_ say without saying the wrong thing. The silence became too awkward and he didn't know what to do, so he left the room to give Casey some privacy. A few minutes later he'd come into the kitchen, not even able to look at Kelly, but he'd made his way over to the table, and sat down, a scowl on his face, his eyes staring at the floor like a child trying to appear unfazed by his punishment. Since Casey wasn't going to say anything, Kelly decided he needed to, and he found himself pacing around the room, hoping he didn't screw up and say the wrong thing. Casey wouldn't look up at him but Kelly could still feel his eyes watching him.

"Casey, I don't see what the problem is, I don't know why you're freaking out about this. You already know that I'm not going to tell anybody anything about what's going on, I meant it, you don't want anybody to know, nobody's gonna find out, it's as simple as that, but I'm telling you, you're making too much out of this. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, if you _do_ , I'm _here_."

Casey didn't lift his head but Kelly could see his eyes looking upward towards him instead of down at the floor. After a couple minutes he raised his head to actually look at Kelly, and asked cautiously, sounding as much like a scared kid as he was acting, "You won't laugh?"

Kelly huffed, raised his hand and said, "I, Kelly Severide, swear on my mother's life and her eternal wrath if I lie, I will _not_ laugh."

Casey self consciously looked down again for a minute, then he slowly looked back over at Kelly, and said quietly, "It helps...I can't explain it, but it helps."

Kelly shrugged and responded, "Then that's all that matters."

Casey looked at Severide like he wasn't getting it, "Kelly it's so-"

"I know, but you don't have to worry, nobody's going to know."

"See, that's the problem," Casey said somberly, "again, even though I'm not the one that did anything wrong, nobody can know about this."

"So explain it to me," Kelly said, "what's so embarrassing about it?"

Casey glared at him, "You're kidding, right?"

Kelly shrugged, "Explain it to me. If it helps you, what's the problem?"

Casey looked at him and said, "You know what will happen if anybody finds out about this."

"Casey, you know the guys at 51 better than that," Kelly replied. Casey closed his eyes and shook his head, as if he was trying to push all of this away. "Casey, Herrmann wouldn't have brought it in the first place if he didn't think it would help."

"And who all knows about _that_?" Casey asked, looking at him. He took Severide's silence for an answer, "See?"

Severide felt like they were going in circles. He tiredly rubbed his eyes as he responded, "Look Casey, bottom line is if it helps, then that's all that matters, okay? You don't want anybody finding out about this, you have my word, they'll never hear about it from me."

Casey shook his head hopelessly and said, "I hate all of this. I want my life back the way it was."

"I know."

There was a pause between them before Kelly said, "Can I ask you something? When did-"

"It was a few nights after you started sleeping on the couch," Casey answered, "It's not like _that_."

Severide nodded. "Casey, if you had to take medication to help you sleep, would it be embarrassing if people knew about that?"

"Somewhat," he answered, meeting Kelly's questioning eyes, "less than this."

"Casey, what's so embarrassing about needing help?'

"This from the guy who hid a broken neck for _how_ many months?" Matt replied.

"That was different."

"You didn't want to be told you couldn't be a firefighter anymore," Casey said, "so much so you were willing to risk your life and anybody else's on the job."

Kelly remembered what Dr. Charles said about Casey being on the defensive and pushing the others away from him, so he let that one pass for the most part, but responded, "Not one of the smartest decisions I ever made."

"I'm smart," Casey replied, "if I don't go back, I don't put anybody else at risk, since I can't be depended on anyway."

"What're you talking about?"

"I'm too much of a liability," Casey said, "the therapy isn't helping, I'm not getting any better, I won't be good for anything on a call..." he folded his arms on the table and set his head on them and groaned, "it's better that I just don't go back."

Severide looked down at him and said simply, "That's not true."

"I wouldn't trust myself on a call, I can't expect anybody else to either," Casey said.

"Casey," Severide was well aware he was the pot calling the kettle black right now, but he told Matt, "you're being too impatient with yourself. This is going to take time, you have _got_ to calm down."

"Yeah, I need to calm down, I need to take it easy," Casey's tone took on varying degrees of resentment and hostility, "I need to be wrapped up in bubble paper so I don't fall apart, which is exactly what everybody's waiting on."

"That's not true either, and you know it," Kelly told him as he got up from his chair and went over to his side of the table. "Casey, I'm trying to help you."

"I don't want your help."

"Maybe not, but you need it, and _that's_ not something to be embarrassed about either."

Casey snorted and scoffed in response.

"Look, Casey, whether you like it or not, you're not getting rid of me. And you know why?"

Casey made a small dismissive sound in his throat.

Severide leaned down to look him in the eyes. "Because you're my best friend, and I _need_ to know you're okay, and if I'm not here, and I can't see for myself that you're alright, I'm going to go crazy worrying about you. Don't shut me out."

Casey looked at him, then closed his eyes, and a small sob suddenly tore loose. Severide knelt down beside Casey's chair and rubbed his back as he waited to see what happened next.

* * *

Kelly pushed the bedroom door open and peered in. The room was dark but he was able to make out the image of Casey in the middle of the bed, curled on his side, one arm holding Herrmann's teddy bear against his chest in a death grip. If he squeezed it any harder, the stuffing would pop out of it. Kelly took a step back and pulled the door shut behind him, and went back to his spot on the couch.

He thought back to his discussion with Dr. Charles, and he still wasn't sure whether this fell under the heading of 'help' or 'hurt', but if Casey was able to sleep, it had to be a good thing. So where did it all go so wrong? He thought about it for a minute, then decided he was going to wake Casey up, he hated to do it, but he had to get something off of his chest.

"Casey, you awake?" he asked as he rapped on the door and headed in.

In the dark he heard Casey move around in the bed and heard the covers being moved. Even though everything was all out in the open, he knew that Casey had stuffed the teddy bear away somewhere.

"Can we talk?" Severide asked as he made his way over to the bed.

"About what?" Matt asked.

Kelly sat on the edge of the bed and looked over at him, "I'm sorry that I embarrassed you earlier. That was never my intention. I know this is hard for you, I just thought," he snaked his hand under the covers, found the bear, latched onto its ear and pulled it out even though neither one could see much of anything in the dark, "I thought it'd cheer you up, I didn't think that it would be a problem."

"I'm not mad at you," Casey told him, "I'm mad at myself. I don't like being like this, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better...I don't think I _can_ ever go back to 51, but I don't want to lose the respect of everybody there."

"You won't," Kelly shook his head, "you know that, you know them better than that."

"Anything else, I'd agree, but this is different, this has never happened before," Casey said.

Kelly felt rather than saw Casey turn towards him, and heard him say in full sincerity, "I just _knew_ I was going to die in that hotel."

That weighed the air down for Severide, he felt like a boulder had just been put over his chest.

"I didn't have any illusions about getting out of there alive," Casey told him. "I tried to break loose, but nothing happened, and past that...I guess I just accepted it. Even when I knew he was about to kill me..."

Kelly squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to ward off the mental image from what Voight had told him.

"I knew there wasn't any point in struggling," Casey said. "I sound like a coward."

"No," Kelly shook his head, "you're the strongest person I know, Casey." He reached over and pulled Matt into a tight embrace, "I couldn't do what you did. I'm so sorry, Casey."

He felt Casey shaking his head, "It's not your fault...nobody knew where I was, nobody knew what was happening, there just wasn't _anything_ that anybody could've done to stop it. It's just the way it was."

"I'm still sorry," Kelly told him.

He felt Casey grab him and reciprocate the hug. After a few seconds he heard Casey ask, "You promise you won't tell the others?"

"I won't tell them anything you don't want me to," Kelly said.

"I know you're right, that they wouldn't...but it's just easier not to tell them in the first place," Casey said.

"I understand," Kelly replied. He looked at him and told him, "Casey, anything you think will help you, I'm willing to try. You know that, don't you?"

Casey nodded. "I know...I just can't think of anything."

"Well," Kelly picked up the teddy bear and placed it on Casey's chest, "This might not be a bad place to start. From what I've seen, you sleep pretty well with this...think how much people would save on sleeping pills if they tried the same thing."

Casey laughed.

* * *

The next day on shift, Severide was in his quarters, seated at his desk, a pen in one hand to finish an incident report, the other hand had his phone and was typing up a quick message for Casey, when he heard a knock on the door. He turned and saw it was Herrmann.

"Hey Severide, I just want to make sure I got this right, can you look over this incident report real quick?" he asked.

Kelly put his phone down, "Sure, Herrmann." He stood up, took the paper from Christopher, looked it over and concluded, "Looks okay to me."

"Good, I was hoping a fresh set of eyes woud help," Herrmann replied. "What're you doing?"

"Oh...just checking in with Casey."

"How's he doing?" Herrmann asked.

"Uh...I don't know," Kelly answered as he sat back down. "He has a lot of ups and downs right now...I'm going crazy not knowing what he's up to, and he's going crazy from me checking in with him all the time."

"So why do you do it?" Herrmann asked.

"I want to make sure he's alright."

"When was the last time you checked in with him?"

"Oh...about an hour ago."

"Okay, but uh...wasn't he alright when you left this morning?" Herrmann asked.

"Seemed to be."

"So why would you think he isn't now?" Christopher asked.

"I don't know...it's just hard not to think about all the stuff that could be happening," Kelly's hand reached for his phone again.

"Severide, _stop_ ," Herrmann said in the same voice he probably used on his kids all the time. "Kelly, we're all worried about Casey, incase you haven't noticed, our plan to rotate each shift hasn't gone quite as planned, you've been the only one with him most days."

"I know," Kelly said in a helpless 'what-can-I-do?' tone.

"Severide, I know Casey, he is not going to have a nervous breakdown or slit his wrists just because you're not calling in every hour on the hour," Herrmann said, "you gotta back off and give him some space."

"You haven't seen what I've seen," Severide told him.

Christopher looked at him inquisitively, "What do you mean?"

Severide leaned back in his chair. "He told me point blank last night that he _knew_ he was going to die in that hotel, do you have any idea how much that hurts? He _knew_ we wouldn't be there, he _knew_ nobody would come to save him...and the worst part is he's absolutely right. We didn't know...if the fire hadn't broken out he _would_ be dead, and we'd never have known _that_ either."

"You can't blame yourself for that, Severide," Herrmann said.

"I just want him to get better...I want him to stop talking about he can't come back to 51, that he won't be any good on a call..." he felt his eyes starting to sting as he continued, "I want him to stop crying every single time he comes home from the psychiatrist, I want him to get through the night without screaming...is that too much to ask for?"

"Hey, hey," Herrmann said as he reached over and placed a hand on Kelly's shoulder, "Severide, calm down, you are not going to do you or Casey any good making yourself sick worrying about him. Now I know, everybody knows, Casey has been through hell during all this, and his recovery is definitely not easy, but I know he's going to be alright, because that's the kind of man that he is, _nothing_ can hold him back."

"I hope you're right, Herrmann, but it's different this time."

"So it's different, so was the building falling on him, hey he came away from that one alright, didn't he? He will this too."


	9. Chapter 9

The next afternoon, Severide entered Casey's bedroom and found him in bed with the covers drawn up, his face grimaced in a mask of pain, his eyes all but squeezed shut. He'd had a headache earlier in the day that had turned into a migraine and nothing was helping; he'd taken a couple more aspirin than he should've, he'd gotten waterlogged making sure it wasn't from dehydration, he'd eaten two chocolate bars hoping the caffeine would help the painkillers kick in quicker, and he'd taken a hot shower hoping that would help alleviate some of the pain, and nothing had worked. The only recourse left was to go to bed and sleep it off, he'd told Kelly that it felt like his head was about to explode, and the pained expression on his face definitely lent some credibility to that idea.

Casey had already drawn the blinds to block out the daylight, Severide went over and checked them to make sure they couldn't be closed any tighter to make the room any darker, then he went over to the bed and stood over Casey as he told him, "I have to go out for a while and run a few errands, but I'll be back later and see how you're doing, you just take it easy."

Casey scrunched his face up even more as he felt his stomach pulsating in time with every single syllable Severide was saying.

"Kelly..." he got out in a strained whisper.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up, please." If he didn't, Casey just _knew_ he was going to throw up.

Severide must've been able to put it together, he lowered his voice and responded, "Sorry." He smoothed out the covers and absently stroked over Casey's head a couple times, then headed for the door, but did not miss Casey pulling the blankets up over his head to drown out the rest of the light in the bedroom.

Severide returned to the apartment a couple hours later, ducked his head in the bedroom and saw Casey curled up on his side in the bed in a dead sleep. Kelly felt, to pardon an expression, like he was playing with matches, but he decided to try something and just see what happened. He tiptoed over to the bed and looked around to see where Casey had stashed the teddy bear. Even though they'd already gone over this, Casey still felt a need to hide it during the day, Kelly didn't know why but he knew not to push Casey on it. He found it stuffed under the pillows on the other side of the bed, and he carefully leaned over and placed it in Casey's reach. Even asleep he must've been able to identify it by touch because he latched onto it and squeezed it tight against his chest with both arms. Listening to Casey's side of it, Severide could in theory understand why Matt found the whole thing so embarrassing, but he still couldn't get past the notion if it helped Casey, and it seemed to, then that was all that mattered. Casey tucked the bear's head under his chin and started to curl into a ball in his sleep, it looked to Kelly like it was helping anyway. He quietly retreated and headed to the kitchen to start on dinner, though he suspected Casey wouldn't be waking up in time to eat.

In fact, it was 9 o' clock at night when Casey finally stumbled out of the bedroom, half looking like the walking dead. Severide was sitting on the couch and had been watching a football game with the volume turned down, it was a very different experience when there were no commentators to clue you in to who was doing what to whom and how.

"Hey, you feeling any better?" he asked.

"My head doesn't feel like it's gonna explode now," Casey said, "but it still hurts."

"So why're you up?"

"I'm hungry."

"I saved you a plate, you'll have to heat it up."

"Thanks," Casey said as he padded over to the kitchen.

While he was in there, Severide happened to look down at the coffee table and noticed something sticking out from under the pile of newspapers for the past week, it was the same notepad Casey had been using last week and wound up tearing all the sheets off and throwing them in the trash. It was still half full and there was something written on the top page, Kelly started to slide it out from under the papers.

"Don't touch that," Casey reentered the living room.

Kelly all but jumped. Casey didn't say anything else, just sat down beside him.

"Is that still the homework assignment that shrink's making you do?" Kelly decided to get it all out in the open.

"Yeah."

"Having any luck?"

"No."

"Can I see?"

"No."

Kelly looked at him and asked genuinely, "Can I help?"

Casey looked at him as he poked at his food with his fork. "I still think it's a stupid idea...write down what you'd say to your attacker if you were facing him...if he were alive, and this whole thing went to trial, the only time I'd say anything would be on the witness stand testifying, during which you don't say anything to him because he's the defendant."

"Did he actually say 'if you were facing him in court'?" Severide asked.

"No...it was more along the lines of 'if he were still alive and you confronted him'. Confronted him where, how?"

Now things were starting to make sense to Kelly, he thought anyway.

"Okay, I think the problem is you're looking at it too literally," he told Casey.

"What else is there?"

"Humor me a minute...say Murtaugh didn't die in the fire, and say the cops caught him...and say Voight gave you five minutes in the cage with him uninterrupted...what would you do?"

Casey turned to him and answered simply, "Kill him."

There was a pause before Kelly responded, "Me too...but would you say anything to him while you did?"

Casey shook his head, "There's nothing _to_ say...nothing that could fix _any_ of this, so what's the point?"

"But you still have to do it?"

"Let's just say it's been highly recommended I come up with _something_ to say."

"So why not just say anything and get it over with?" Kelly asked.

"Because I don't want to," Casey answered, "is that so hard to understand?"

Kelly shrugged, "Sorry, I'm just trying to help."

Casey groaned as he touched the side of his head, "I know...but I don't know how you can, because I don't even know what I'm doing."

He ate half of his dinner and got up and told Kelly, "I'm going back to bed, I'm hoping this headache's gone tomorrow."

Whatever it was, Kelly hoped it wasn't stress related, or it was going to kill Casey at this rate.

* * *

Casey turned on his side and sighed. He couldn't sleep. He'd been trying for the better part of an hour, tossed and turned on every side, in every position possible, and nothing. He was tired but he couldn't get to sleep. He'd slept like the dead the night before when he had that horrible migraine, but sleep was not coming easily for him tonight. Severide was out in the living room, presumably asleep since Casey hadn't heard anything out there for a while. He thought about going out there and seeing if Kelly was still up, thought about talking to him, but he decided against it. If Severide _was_ asleep, Casey wasn't going to bother him just because _he_ couldn't sleep. But if he didn't fall asleep soon, he'd be exhausted come the morning.

Hating himself for it, Casey found his hand reaching over to the pillows on the other side of the bed. In the dark, he felt his way under the pillows and found the teddy bear, and slowly pulled it out. He hated himself for needing this thing. He was almost 40 years old and he needed a damn toy to fall asleep like a baby, no indeed if word of this got out to anybody at 51, he would _never_ be able to live it down. He didn't even remember how the whole thing started, what ever possessed him...after Severide stuck it on the couch with him that day he'd gotten his test results back, Kelly had jokingly put it on the dresser in his bedroom, and it had stayed there. Until a few nights later, and Casey couldn't sleep. For some reason he decided to try it, he decided since Severide was out in the living room and nobody would see him, there couldn't be any problem. What did he have to lose? And the truth was, though he had no idea how or why, he seemed to fall asleep fairly quickly after that. He still had it in his grip when he woke up the next morning. What it all meant, he had no idea, he just knew as long as Severide never found out, and subsequently nobody else either, he was fine. Why did Kelly have to walk in on him the other day? Now everything was a mess.

The first thing that he'd noticed when he actually tried it was how soft the fur was, there was something familiar about it though he didn't know what, he hadn't had a teddy bear since he was about 2 years old and he didn't remember being particularly fond of it then either. Even now he felt his hand absently running over its head and back, smooth when he ran his hand down the fur, bristly when he ran it back up. He held it tight against him and felt the fur brush against his cheek, as much as he hated himself that he'd reached this point, he honestly felt better with it. It didn't make any sense, and he couldn't figure out how something could simultaneously make him feel better _and_ worse, but he did. It was easier for him to sleep but he lived in utter dread of what would happen if anybody at 51 found out about this. Several things from the past couple weeks that people had said to him started running through his head.

 _"Do you have any idea how humiliating this is? Now everybody's gonna know!"_

 _"Casey the doctors here are trained professionals, they see this all the time, they know it wasn't your fault."_

 _"Not them. Everybody at 51!"_

 _"Whatever it is you're scared of everyone knowing, you don't have to be, and you know it. Nobody is going to blame you for what happened, and you know nobody is going to think any less of you for it, I don't, I know nobody else does."_

 _"What this guy did to you, Casey, he'd done to several other men over the years..." he looked at Severide and added, "We're not sure how many, DNA's finally being run against cold cases nationwide, so far we got 9 from the tri-state area. All of them hit in the back of the head, kidnapped, their cars found abandoned, all of them tied up, raped, the hell beaten out of them, the bruising pattern matches. The difference between you and the others, Casey," Voight said with a slight pause, "...is you're the only one that survived."_

 _"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but if you do, we're all here for you, you know that."_

 _"You don't have to."_

 _"I don't have to do anything, you're my best friend, I'm not leaving you alone," Kelly told him._

 _"Dr. Downey told him if a patient believes that dressing their wounds in green bandages is more effective, they will dress them in green bandages."_

 _Boden raised a hand and shook his head, "You don't have to explain anything to anybody, Casey, all you have to do is focus on recovering."_

 _"Do you know anyone who was raped?" Dr. Charles asked._

 _"No," Casey answered._

 _"How do you know? Do you think you would know if somebody was?"_

 _"That could just as easily have been me when we went off shift, and if it was, and it was me they'd pulled out of that hotel room, and it was me that went through everything that's happened in the past two weeks, would you think I was too weak to go back on Squad?"_

 _"You won't laugh?"_

 _"If it helps you, what's the problem?"_

 _"You know what will happen if anybody finds out about this."_

 _"Casey, if you had to take medication to help you sleep, would it be embarrassing if people knew about that?"_

 _"I need to be wrapped up in bubble paper so I don't fall apart, which is exactly what everybody's waiting on."_

 _"No," Kelly shook his head, "you're the strongest person I know. I couldn't do what you did. I'm so sorry, Casey."_

 _"I don't want your help."_

 _"Maybe not, but you need it, and that's not something to be embarrassed about either."_

Casey subconsciously squeezed the teddy bear tighter against his chest and tried to push all the memories away.

He hated himself, for several different reasons. Most of all he hated himself because he couldn't accept what he inherently knew to be true. Severide was right, if the bastard that nearly killed him had succeeded to do the same thing with 9 other First Responders, then Casey knew it wasn't on account of anything he did or didn't do or should've known to do, there wasn't anything he could've done to stop what happened to him, and he hated _that_ too. He hated that he felt some part of him had been lost during his attack, and was gone for good, he didn't know what it was but he hadn't felt like his whole self ever since they pulled him out of that hotel, whatever it was, his full sense of being a man and a firefighter had gone with it.

He also hated himself because he knew what Kelly said was right about if the roles were reversed, if it were him in this position...but Casey shook his head, he just couldn't picture Severide resorting to sleeping with a stuffed animal for any peace of mind. He couldn't picture Severide going to a therapist, he couldn't picture Severide coming home in tears after each session, or going back again, whether or not he had a choice. It just wasn't believable...but until a few weeks ago he never thought it could happen to him either. It had, he knew it had, but part of it still didn't seem real, he still felt like he could pretend it hadn't actually happened, some days he tried to convince himself of that, but reality always came crashing down on him, and he remembered it had, and he was different now, and he hated that too.

Severide's words rang in his ears and he knew the Squad lieutenant was right. He'd known everybody at 51 long enough to know that none of them were so heartless they would ridicule one of their own who had been through something as horrible as he had been. He knew it, but he couldn't accept it. Part of him still lived in terror of what would happen when and if he went back to 51 and everyone found out. When he'd left them at that last shift change, everything had been normal, _he_ had been normal, nobody suspected anything out of the ordinary was about to happen, but what would they think of him now that so much had changed?

Casey threw back the covers and found himself walking through the dark towards the door, opening it and going out to the living room, he made his way over to the couch, leaned over it and felt Severide's body and started shaking him.

"Hu-ha-wha-what?" Kelly mumbled as he woke up. "Casey, what is it?"

Casey couldn't see Severide's eyes because it was too dark, but he was sure he was looking straight into them anyway as he said in a half whisper, "I'm sorry for waking you up...I need to talk."

Though he couldn't see it, Severide looked at him for a couple seconds feeling dazed, then he got up and moved over so Casey could sit down beside him.

"What's up?" he asked.

* * *

Casey had reluctantly unloaded some of the burdening thoughts that had been eating at him for the last few weeks, onto Severide's shoulders to get some light shed and hopefully get a second opinion about it all.

"I can understand why this is all hard for you, Casey, it would be for anybody," Kelly told him, "but you're not making it easier on yourself worrying about everything."

"That's easy for _you_ to say," Casey replied, "and it's easy for you to be so understanding because _you're_ not the one going through it. You opened that door, Kelly, what if it _was_ you? Could you see yourself doing any of this?"

"I don't know, I honestly don't know," Kelly said. "But I would hope if I did, that you would be as patient, I'm well aware I have a longer track history than you do of being very hard to put up with."

That turned one corner of Casey's mouth up in a slight smile, a small laugh of a grunt rose to his throat.

"Okay, Casey, I want you to explain this to me again," Severide told him. "What is it about this whole thing that scares you the _most_?"

Casey sighed, and answered, "That nobody at 51 will have any respect for me, whether I go back or not, and if I do, I can't stand wondering what they think when they look at me, are they all going to be whispering behind my back?"

"Okay, I get that," Kelly said, "that would scare anybody...but why _would_ they?"

"Because of what happened to me...and what I'm like now that it's over."

"What do you mean?" Kelly asked.

"You _know_."

"I know you've had a hard time the first couple weeks home because of your stitches and the medications you were taking, both of which are a moot point now, so that doesn't enter the equation, I know you're having trouble sleeping, which is still pretty on par with our job, show me a firefighter who doesn't have-"

"And you know I'm so pathetic I have to sleep with a stuffed animal," Casey said in a low self-loathing tone.

"Casey, it's not that bad."

"Oh no?" he snorted.

"I _do_ know that that bear Herrmann gave you helps you to sleep, and _you_ know I'm not going to laugh at you because of it."

Casey was silent for a second, then asked in a low, almost childlike tone, "You promise?"

"I promise."

"You _promise_?" Casey wanted reassurance.

"You have my word."

Casey sighed.

"But since we're on the subject, worst case scenario, the guys at 51 _do_ find out...and let's say for the sake of argument, simply because this _is_ new territory for everybody and nobody has any idea what they're doing or how to respond or how to act, say they do laugh...why does that scare you so much?" Kelly asked.

Casey was quiet for a minute, then inhaled, then his voice came out in a small sob, "Because it'll mean they don't respect me anymore."

"That's not true," Kelly told him, "you know how they are, we bust each other's balls all the time but it doesn't mean we don't still respect one another."

"But this is different," Casey replied.

"Okay, so try this," Kelly counted off on his fingers, "Herrmann gave you the bear, he obviously thought it would do _something_ to help you, do you think he'd laugh if he found out?"

"Well...no."

"Do you think Mouch would laugh at you?"

"I don't know."

"Do you _really_ think he would?" Kelly asked, both of them knowing Mouch had had his fair share of hazing over the years.

"No."

"What about Otis?"

Otis had had to bust his ass for the longest time to prove himself just to make it from candidate to firefighter. Casey could just imagine what it would've been like for him if something like this had happened back then. "No."

"How about Cruz?"

Casey thought for a minute. "I don't know. These are my guys, the ones who answer to me, if I don't have their respect, I don't have anything."

"But we both know that would never happen," Severide pointed out.

"Which takes us to _your_ crew, who never had much respect for anybody on Truck to begin with."

"That's not true."

"Especially Capp, every single thing is just a big damn joke to him," Casey said.

"Come on, Casey, that's not fair," Severide replied.

Casey turned to him, "Do you _not_ remember what happened to Otis when Pridgen replaced Boden? Remember what happened at the bowling alley?"

"Okay, okay, point taken," Kelly conceded.

"Oh God," Casey groaned, "can you imagine what it'd be like if Pridgen was there _now_?"

"But he's not," Kelly reminded him. "Boden's the chief and he always will be, and you know damn well he of all people is _not_ going to think any less of you because of what happened."

" _I just want to be normal again_!" Casey's voice shook as he broke down sobbing.

Severide put an arm around Matt and pulled him against him, rested his chin on the top of Casey's head and said quietly, "I know, I know, shhh..."

* * *

The living room was quiet, Casey had finally stopped crying, Severide was exhausted and he had to be on shift in a few hours. He still had his arm wrapped around Casey's back and rubbed it soothingly even though he wasn't sure if Casey was still awake or not. He listened to Matt's breathing, that wasn't any help since he could hardly hear anything. In theory he knew they could stay like this until the sun came up, but that wasn't ideal for either of them, so he decided to risk waking his friend.

"Casey...you asleep?"

There were no words but Casey grumbled something tiredly against Severide's chest.

Severide lifted his hand and patted Casey's shoulder. "Come on, buddy, let's get you back to bed so you can stretch out." He grabbed Casey's arm and slung it over his shoulder and helped Casey stand up, and slowly walked him back towards the bedroom. Some light shone in through the window from a streetlamp up the corner, enough that Kelly could make his way over to the bed and get Casey sat down on it. He grabbed Casey's ankles and lifted his legs onto the bed and got him straightened out, Matt seemed to be just about dead to the world. But before he left, Severide had one more order of business to tend to.

"Casey."

"Hmm?" Casey tiredly forced his eyes open. He couldn't see anything clearly because the room was still mostly dark, but he was able to make out Severide's outline, and he saw Kelly holding something over him. The teddy bear.

Casey was exhausted but he still remembered their conversation earlier. He tiredly held up both hands to take it, and as he felt the stuffed toy placed in his grasp, he whispered tiredly, "Thank you."

Kelly leaned down and kissed Casey on the crown of his head and told him as he pulled the covers up, "I think you just took a big step in the right direction. Goodnight, buddy." With that, he turned and padded back out of the room and went back to the couch to get a couple hours' sleep before his day started.


	10. Chapter 10

Severide was in his quarters getting ready to send a text to Casey when Herrmann knocked on the door and showed himself in. "Severide."

"First time today, Herrmann, I swear," Kelly said.

"Huh? No, how's Casey doing?"

"I don't know, Herrmann," Kelly sighed as he put his phone down and turned to the acting lieutenant, "Is it possible for somebody to get better and worse at the same time?"

"What's going on?" Christopher asked.

"Shut the door. Herrmann, if I tell you what's going on, you have to swear you won't tell anybody, not _anybody_ , this can't be the usual firehouse gossip that gets around to everybody working here before noon."

"Hey, you think I can't keep my mouth shut?" Herrmann asked.

"You can't tell anyone, not even Mouch. Not even Cindy."

"Okay, you got my word, now what's going on?"

Severide gave Herrmann a basic rundown on what had been going on the last few days, and it took half an hour just to give him the basics.

"Aw geez that's rough, poor Casey," Herrmann concluded at the end of it all.

"He is scared to death that if anybody finds out what's going on, nobody's going to respect him anymore," Kelly said.

"That's a very primal fear for people in general, especially for firefighters because we've had to spend so long proving ourselves to everyone," Herrmann commented. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't understand it."

"I don't know what to do," Severide told him.

"Maybe there's nothing you can do," Christopher suggested, "this could just be something Casey has to work out for himself."

"I can't just abandon him, Herrmann."

"I'm not telling you to, look Kelly, I know you think it's your job to somehow fix this for Casey, but some things just happen on their own, without everybody trying so hard. Hey," Christopher looked him in the eyes, "I won't tell on you, you don't tell on me, is that a deal?"

"About what?" Kelly asked.

Herrmann raised a hand to halt any questioning and looked to the door to make sure nobody was eavesdropping, he turned back to the Squad lieutenant and told him, "After I got stabbed at Molly's, and I finally got to come home from the hospital, I get there, Luke, Annabelle and Max are sleeping with Cindy, Lee Henry's been wetting the bed and he can't sleep unless all the lights are turned on in the room. What the hell? I was gone a week and a half, I come home and my whole house is turned upside down. None of this was going on when I went through that floor four years earlier. Top it all off, I start dreaming about that night, trying to block the knife, next morning Cindy's got a black eye going all the way down her cheek because I whopped her in my sleep and didn't know it. Thought I was losing my mind, I didn't know how to fix everything."

"What'd you do?" Kelly asked.

"Cindy got the idea we should take the kids to one of those child psychotic therapists," Herrmann said, "whatever they're called."

Kelly covered his face with his hand and tilted his head down so Herrmann couldn't see him trying very hard not to laugh.

"Anyway, the therapist says we gotta give the kids time to adjust to me being home again and figure out everything's okay, that we just gotta be patient...so we do...you know, 2 months later, Lee Henry's sleeping like a bear again, kids back in their own beds, everything's fine. Just had to wait it out."

"Casey's getting tired of waiting," Kelly replied, "and I don't blame him, it's already nearing a month."

"Yeah, but what happened to Casey is far worse than Frankie stabbing me," Herrmann told him, "It's _going_ to take longer for him to recover from that. In the meantime, anything we can do to help him, we will, just give us the word."

"I know, Herrmann, but I don't know what, I don't think Casey does either."

* * *

Severide's next night off shift, he was sitting in the living room of Casey's apartment watching TV when Matt entered the room, looked at him, and said only, "Green bandages, huh?"

Kelly sat up and turned off the TV. "You think of something?"

"Maybe," Casey replied. "Can I borrow your car?"

Severide raised an eyebrow. "Something happen to your truck?"

"No," Casey said simply, volunteering nothing else.

Kelly tried to chew on that one, but the only question that made any sense to ask next was, "You mind if I come along?"

Casey shrugged, "If you want to."

Kelly stood up and tossed his keys to Casey.

"Where're we going?" he asked as he put his jacket on.

* * *

Wherever they were going, they were going to get there at a faster rate than the speed limits permitted. Kelly wasn't sure how long they'd been in the car, but he knew Chicago was already far out of their reach. He wasn't even sure if Casey knew where he was going, or had ever been on this road, but he'd gotten them out of the city limits very quickly and now they were in a secluded rural part of the state where there were no buildings, no houses, no traffic, and the only light they could see by was his headlights. God help anybody or anything that would happen to step out in the middle of the road as they were passing, Severide hadn't been able to get a good look at the speedometer but he knew there was no way in hell they'd be able to stop in time to avoid hitting anyone.

"Casey..."

Matt's eyes stared straight ahead at something on the road, like he was chasing something down, and the glare in his eyes said he wasn't going to stop until he caught it.

"Casey."

The Truck lieutenant didn't respond to his name, not verbally, not by any movement in his face. It was like he didn't hear Kelly, almost like he wasn't even there. Kelly looked out the window and though it was too dark to see much of anything, whatever was out there passed them by in a blur. The roar of the engine was already deafening but it got even louder as Kelly realized Casey pressed the accelerator closer to the floor and they were going even faster now, so much so that Kelly was knocked against the back of his seat.

Up ahead there was a light, and it was moving, and as they approached it, Severide saw it was the front of a train passing by on the tracks, and Kelly felt his stomach drop as he realized Casey wasn't slowing down even though they'd be approaching the tracks in just a few seconds.

"Casey!"

That same determined hunter's glare in Matt's eyes as he stared straight ahead, seemingly at nothing. The thought dawned on Severide to try and grab the wheel but he already knew that would be a suicidal move for sure. Through the closed windows, over the roar of the engine, he was able to hear the unmistakable blare of the train's horn as they neared the tracks. There was hardly time to blink.

The car jerked as they went over the tracks and Severide felt his heart jump in his throat as he heard the deafening roar of the train as it passed by and it started to occur to him that they had gotten over the tracks _just_ in time. How much time? Surely only a couple more seconds and they would've been killed.

"Casey!"

There was still no change in Matt's eyes as he drove them along at top speed, going where? Kelly didn't know where, but as he felt his heart pounding against his chest and racing like a horse, he had a good idea Casey could very easily be taking them out to kill them both, whether deliberately or not, the way he was driving it didn't seem to make much difference.

Just when Severide seriously started to think he was going to lose his mind, he realized they were starting to slow down, not much, not enough to be out of any immediate danger from anymore unexpected obstacles, but the scenery speeding past was starting to disappear behind them at a slightly slower rate.

"Casey?"

Still no answer. Severide breathed in, and out, and waited for his heart to stop pounding, and watched out the window as things started to pass by gradually slower, and slower, and finally Casey stopped the car in the middle of an empty field.

"Casey?" Kelly turned to him, wondering what had just happened.

Casey turned towards him, looked at him for a minute, then told him, "Thanks...you don't know what it's like to feel alive again."

Severide sucked in a long and particularly loud breath. Casey felt alive, and he just about gave _him_ a heart attack. Kelly realized for all he was huffing and puffing trying to catch his breath, Casey's breathing patterns didn't seem to be different from normal in the slightest. He didn't get it. But he knew now why Casey had asked to borrow his car, there was no way he could've gone as fast and made all the sharp twists and turns that he had in his pickup truck.

Dryly, Severide asked him, "You mind if I drive us back?"

Without any apparent care in the world, Casey shook his head and reached for the door, "No, go ahead."

* * *

Kelly was never so glad to be home. It had taken them an hour and a half driving the speed limit, but they finally returned to Casey's apartment. He couldn't feel the bones in his body, after what he'd been through earlier he felt like one big mass of jelly. He made his way over to the couch on wobbly legs and collapsed on the center cushion. A couple minutes later, Casey entered the apartment, he looked tired but otherwise seemed unfazed by what had happened.

Severide put his own exhaustion and terror of the night aside and asked him, "Hey, you feeling alright?"

Casey looked at him and nodded as he locked the door. He padded over to the couch and asked Kelly, "Can I ask you a question?"

Kelly shrugged. "Sure."

Casey looked at him and asked uncertainly, self consciously, "What if they _do_ laugh at me?"

"What?"

"If I do go back to 51, if anybody _would_ find out about what's been going on...what if they _do_ laugh?"

The unasked question hung in the air, 'What do I do then?', but since it was unasked, Severide forewent answering it, and instead answered only, "Then I'll kick their ass, and that's a promise."

Casey shifted his gaze down to the floor for a minute, then back up at Severide, and his mouth slowly turned upwards into a small smile. He pressed one bent knee on the couch so he matched Kelly's current height and hugged him, saying only, "Thank you."

Kelly reached around with one arm and patted Casey on the back. "No problem, buddy."

* * *

Casey was alone in his apartment two days after the next shift when his phone buzzed, he knew _one_ person it couldn't possibly be, so he answered before he checked.

"Hello?"

"Hey lieutenant," Cruz said, "how're you doing?"

It seemed every other day somebody called and asked the same question, and Casey still wasn't sure if it was a trick question or not. "Fine."

"Is Severide there?"

"No, he broke a tooth last night, he got an emergency appointment at the dentist." And he was looking forward to Kelly coming home with a jaw full of Novocaine and hopefully unable to talk, he loved the man like a brother and he knew Severide meant well, but lately he'd been grating on his nerves.

"Well...you've been to Otis and me's apartment, right?"

"Uh yeah, a couple years ago."

"Well, could you come over now?"

"Why?" Casey asked.

"I got something I want to run by you," Joe said.

"And you can't do it over the phone?" Casey asked.

There was a slight pause before Cruz responded simply, "No."

Casey shrugged. "Okay, I'll be there in a little bit." He disconnected the call, and wondered what the hell that was about.

* * *

"Cruz," Casey told the man, "This is a stupid idea."

"I'm telling you, lieutenant, it will work," Joe insisted. The two stood on the sidewalk outside the apartment building Otis and Cruz had been living in for the last few years.

"Cruz, I am _not_ going to talk to Otis's grandmother about what happened to me!"

"I know what you're thinking," Cruz told Matt, "but I'm telling you, it will help."

"How? Didn't Otis say she doesn't understand a word of English?" Casey asked.

"That's why it's perfect," Joe said, "trust me, it works, Babba is like a miracle worker."

Casey shook his head, "Forget it, I'm not doing it."

"Come on, lieutenant, what do you have to lose?" Cruz asked.

"My dignity is still somewhere on that list," Casey responded, "Not much of it has survived the past few weeks but I'd like to keep part of it intact."

Joe sighed and tried again, keyed down this time, "Casey, if Babba doesn't understand a word of English, why does it bother you so much?"

Matt looked to the side for a moment, then looked back at Cruz and asked lowly, almost ashamed, "You don't think Otis told her what happened, do you?"

Cruz looked him in the eyes and answered with a shake of his head, "You know he wouldn't betray you like that."

Casey reluctantly nodded, he _knew_ it, but anymore he found it hard to be sure of anything.

"Just try it," Cruz said, "I promise, you'll feel better if you do."

"Oh my God, Severide told you, didn't he?"

"Hey, between you and me, lieutenant, it's a common fact that _nobody_ wants to talk to shrinks...it'll be easier to tell Babba," Joe told him.

Casey sighed and gave up, "Alright...alright, I'll try it."

"Great, come on, she's upstairs waiting."

"I hope there's booze in the house, there's no way I'm going through this sober," Casey said.

* * *

Brian stepped off the elevator carrying two sacks of groceries for dinner that night, and saw Cruz standing in the hall right outside the door to their apartment.

"Sorry I'm late, you would not believe the traffic that-" it occurred to Otis that something was off, " _what're_ you doing out here?"

"Sh!" Cruz told him, and pointed behind him towards the door, "You gotta see this."

"What happened?" Otis asked.

Cruz shushed him again and told him, "Be quiet."

"Why?"

"Just do it," Cruz whispered.

Otis didn't get it, but he'd go along with it. "Okay, fine."

"Be _quiet_!" Cruz whispered.

"I'm quiet!" Brian replied in a loud whisper.

"Step lightly."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Otis put the bags down as Cruz slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open, the two of them quietly stepped inside, and got halfway through the living room before they both stopped, Cruz because he knew what to expect, and Brian because he didn't believe what he was seeing.

From the living room both men could see into the kitchen, and Otis felt his jaw drop at the sight of Matt Casey sitting at the table, his back to them, his head down, and his arms wrapped around Babba, who stood over him and murmured something soothing and Russian as she held him in her arms and patted his back. With every few breaths Casey took, a small sob could be heard halfway across the apartment. Cruz and Otis quickly and quietly backed out of the apartment and Cruz pulled the door all but shut.

"What happened?" Otis wanted to know.

Joe turned to him and explained, "I told Casey he should talk to Babba about what happened."

"Joe..." Otis squinted, "I've explained before that she doesn't understand a word of English, right?"

"That's why it's perfect," Cruz said, as if it made total sense, "he doesn't have to worry about her repeating it to anybody."

"Uh-huh," Otis slowly nodded in an 'I don't get it' manner, "and how did you think that would help him?"

"Otis, he talked to her for a whole _hour_ ," Cruz explained.

Brian felt his eyes bulge. "What?"

"Uh huh," Cruz nodded.

Otis turned back towards the door and pointed, "And _that_?"

"They've been like that for the last half hour," Cruz answered.

"How..." Brian felt like his mind was blown beyond the ability to form words, after a few seconds he tried again, "how did you know it would work?"

"Because I know Babba," Cruz told him. "That woman is a miracle."

* * *

Casey cupped his hands under the faucet and splashed another batch of cold water on his face. He turned off the tap and stood up straight and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like crap. Reaching over to the side, he found a hand towel and dried his face and hands, and exited the bathroom.

Otis's grandmother seemed to be waiting for him when he came out. The short woman hugged him and said something he didn't understand, but he thought he got the gist of it. He bent down and hugged her in return, then got his jacket and headed for the door. The hallway was empty, he took the stairs down, didn't pass anybody on the way. Out on the street he got in his pickup and drove back to his apartment, and only once he settled down on the couch did he take out his phone and dial up Cruz's number. It rang a couple times.

"Yeah, lieutenant?"

"Thanks," was all Casey said.

* * *

Kelly came home late in the afternoon and kicked the door shut behind him. He would've been back a couple hours earlier, except the dentist who fixed his tooth from last night said he'd found three other cavities that needed filling and decided to get them all done at once, which had meant a couple more needles full of Novocaine, so his whole jaw was numb and felt huge, and another hour or so in the chair. After that he'd started to drive home, but the drugs made him feel lightheaded, so he pulled over to rest for a few minutes, then woke up and realized he'd slept for almost an hour. He'd checked his phone every chance he got, no messages from Casey, no missed calls, which he took as a good thing, anyway he _tried_ not to think of all the different scenarios that could've taken place while he was gone.

"I'm home," he called out, the words were distinct but his lips felt dead as he spoke. He looked around the living room. "Casey?" No sign of him, and no answer. Kelly headed over to the kitchen and tried again. "Casey?" Still nothing. Then he heard something, and realized it was water running from the bathroom. He went over to the bathroom door and listened for a minute, the water shut off, and he heard the shower curtain get pushed back, he stepped away from the door and a minute later Casey stepped out wrapped in a towel, and recoiled at the sight of Severide.

"Geez you scared me to death, I didn't hear you come in," he said.

"Sorry," Kelly said.

"What happened to you?" Casey asked, knowing Severide should've been back long before this.

"Don' ashk," he replied, some feeling slowly returning to his jaw. He looked at Casey and realized he looked different somehow, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He looked at his friend, whose skin was flushed from the hot water, and he realized that Casey's eyes were red rimmed as if he'd been crying, but he also noticed that Casey appeared somewhat brighter eyed than he had since he woke up in the hospital.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked.

Casey looked at him and slowly nodded, "Yeah...I think I am."


	11. Chapter 11

Casey felt hot and confined. At first he thought it was just part of a dream he'd been having, but he realized that he was awake. He was in bed, and the room was dark, he felt something enclosed around him and he couldn't move. He felt his heart starting to race as he tried not to panic, then he felt a hand rubbing against his shoulder blade and realized what it was.

"Oh God," he groaned as he slowly came around.

There was a click and the bedside lamp came on and he could see Severide mere inches from his face, still locking him in a tight embrace with one arm.

"Hey, Casey, how're you feeling?"

"What the hell happened?" Casey asked as he tried to get loose from Kelly's hold. "What're you doing here?" As he tried to push himself away from Severide, he was mortified to realize something was trapped in the crook of his arm. He looked down and saw that amidst the pretzel that was the two of them, was the teddy bear.

"Oh no," he groaned even lower as he squeezed his eyes shut. "This can't be happening."

"Don't start again," Kelly told him as he finally let go of Casey so he could roll back over to his side of the bed.

Casey felt his body covered in sweat as he moved over in the bed. His face felt flushed and he was miserable.

"What happened?" he asked.

"You were moaning in your sleep, I thought I better stay with you," Kelly explained as he sat up, "it sounded like you were in pain."

Casey slowly thought back, and tried to remember the events of the night.

"It was all a dream?" he asked.

"What was?" Kelly asked.

Casey looked at him and answered, "I dreamt I got really sick, I was throwing up all the time, it felt like something was trying to rip my body apart from the inside out, it all felt so real."

"Well you _look_ like you just broke a fever," Kelly told him, "you might've had a bug."

Casey used his free hand to feel his face and wipe away some of the perspiration, then he realized he still had the stuffed animal in his grip, and tossed it on the mattress. "As if I didn't have enough to be embarrassed about already."

"You're making too much out of it, Casey," Kelly told him.

"I _know_ ," Casey groaned as he rubbed his eyes. "I can't help it. It's not embarrassing enough to be my age and sleeping with a teddy bear _or_ in the same bed as my best friend, but _both_ at the same time? If word of this gets out, I'll never be able to show my face in public again." With that, Casey buried his head under the pillows and lay flat on his stomach.

"Come on, Casey, not this again," Kelly said as he turned on his side and pulled the pillows away. "You know when you do that you look-"

"Severide," Casey pointed a warning finger at him and said firmly, "I swear to God, if you say 'cute', I'm going to kill you."

"I was going to say at peace," Kelly said, "you look like you're feeling better."

Casey folded his arms over his head and huffed. Then he lowered his arms and responded, "I suppose I do. I'm still coming to terms with all of this, I can't pretend it's not humiliating to _some_ degree."

Kelly nodded, "I understand that, but you know you don't need to be."

"But I am," Casey told him, "even knowing what I do, I can't help it."

Kelly looked at him, and reached over and stroked his hand over the back of Casey's head and asked him, "Is this okay?"

Casey slowly nodded and murmured, "Yeah, it's fine." There was a pause, then he added, almost too low to even be heard, "Thank you."

"Huh?"

"Thank you for staying with me," Casey said louder, not able to bring himself to actually look at Kelly though. "I couldn't ask you to do it, but I appreciate it."

"Casey, you can ask me."

Matt shook his head. "No... _this_ was a freak one time thing, that's different, I can't make a habit of it because I'm supposed to be getting better, getting...so I can be on my own again."

Kelly stroked over Casey's short hair and told him, "Well, you're the only one that can know when that time comes...but you know I'm here for whatever you need in the meantime, right?"

Casey looked at him through one eye and nodded.

Kelly reached for the teddy bear in the middle of the bed and asked Casey, "You mind if I see this for a minute?"

Casey didn't even want to ask what Severide had in mind, he grunted something and turned over so he faced the door and didn't have to see whatever the hell it was Kelly was doing. He just about crawled out of his skin at some of the sounds Kelly was making.

"Well I can see what the appeal is, this is a nice one, soft...I ever tell you my appendix burst when I was 7?" Kelly asked.

Casey turned back over to face him. "No, you didn't tell me that."

"Benny was on shift when it happened, I don't know _how_ they got word to him but when they were wheeling me off to surgery I saw him come running into the hospital in his full turnout gear. My mom's sister had been staying with us for the week, and when I woke up after the operation, she'd brought this _hideous_ teddy bear into the room, ugliest thing you ever saw, looked like something from a horror movie, you literally expected its eyes to start glowing red and knives to shoot out of its paws." Kelly grimaced as he recalled, "And it had the _worst_ , wire hair fur imaginable, like trying to pet a Brillo pad."

Casey rolled back on his stomach and covered his face with his hand and tried not to laugh.

"And the whole time I'm in that hospital Benny just keeps shooting me these death glares, every time my aunt's out of the room he's telling me 'Shut up, you'll hurt her feelings, you tell her 'thank you' for bringing it'. Up to this point, Benny has been on my side about everything, so I couldn't believe he would do this to me now," Kelly explained.

Casey turned back on his side and looked at Severide as he continued.

"They take me home from the hospital, my aunt _finally_ leaves, and as soon as she's on her way to the airport, Benny picks up the bear in both hands and in one quick move he tears the head clear off the body and chucks it into the trash. He says the damn thing was even giving _him_ the creeps. Compared to that, Herrmann's got great taste."

Through Severide's whole story, Casey felt himself gradually losing the battle with himself not to respond, not to laugh, and finally he knew any and all resistance he'd held onto was gone, a strong, loud laugh forced his lips apart and came out in a sputter, and once the floodgates were open there was no stopping him. He laughed at the top of his lungs and beat his fists against the mattress, then slammed his head against it as well and felt his whole body spasming as he kept laughing, increasingly louder, then high pitched shrieks, and then finally he was writhing around on the bed but no sound was coming out of him. It was several minutes before Casey finally felt his chest gradually stop heaving and was finally able to open his eyes and sit up.

"Feeling better now?" Kelly asked.

Casey turned to him and shook his head and asked, "Was any part of that story actually true?"

"The whole thing!" Kelly almost sounded insulted. "Ask Benny, he almost rammed it down the garbage disposal but he knew my mom would _never_ let him hear the end of that."

Casey pushed up on his knees, reached over, put his arms around Kelly and rested his head on his shoulder and felt his body wracking against him as it went into another laughing fit even though there was almost no sound to accompany them. Matt heaved in several loud breaths before he was finally able to form any words, and when he finally did they came out in a quiet, "I love you."

Severide almost laughed. Even though they'd been friends for over a decade and he _knew_ that little fact, actually hearing it made him smile, maybe simply because he didn't actually hear it too often. Only about as often as he said it, which he wasn't proud to admit wasn't too often either. Maybe because it was so rare, he never doubted that Casey was genuine when he said it, and he hoped Casey knew the same was true of him.

The rhythm of the spasms in Casey's body changed suddenly and it took Kelly a few seconds to realize it was because Casey was crying now, the quiet, shaky sobs tore loose with every breath he took. Kelly put his arms around Casey again in a tight hold and asked him, "What is it, Casey? What's wrong?"

Casey couldn't answer even if he wanted to. He'd misunderstood, and he was ashamed of the way he'd acted before. He thought back to that last time that Kelly had stayed with him in his bed.

 _You never acted like this before...before my...attack...you're scared I can't be treated normally anymore."_

 _"What're you talking about?"_

 _"Come on, Kelly, I know you, you think I'm going to go to pieces..." the self deprecation in his tone was audible as he added, "just like I have been ever since it happened."_

 _"Nobody thinks that, Casey."_

 _"I'm not stupid, Kelly, I know what's going on, everybody whispering behind my back because they don't have the guts to say to my face they think I'm suddenly too fragile to be trusted alone."_

 _"That's not what's going on," Kelly replied, "Casey, nobody thinks that."_

 _"Yes they do," he insisted, "when that beam fell on me, everybody wasn't huddled around me like they have been now. They're too scared to talk about it to my face, but I know what they're thinking, because of what happened to me, what I let happen to me, that I'm too weak to come back as a firefighter, that I can't handle it."_

Hard to believe now that it had been such a threat to him to have Severide being _nice_ to him, always being there for him. His damn pride hadn't let him think about anything except what he was going through at that time. Knowing something and acting on it had been two entirely different concepts, everything that he instinctively knew, he still felt powerless to do anything about. As soon as he'd regained consciousness in the hospital, he _knew_ that nothing was going to be the same, but he vainly, futilely tried to preserve the illusion once he was home, he'd be back to normal, that he could just bounce back from what had happened. Only Severide had been two steps ahead of him the whole way. He'd done everything that he could think of to ease Casey back to life as he knew it, to try and put his attack behind him.

First it was coming home with him, then it was inviting him over to his apartment when his own bedroom was too threatening to him. He didn't have any idea how, but he would swear that Kelly had deliberately set everything up for his own benefit, the lights in the window so he wouldn't wake up in the dark and disoriented, the soft bedding and extra pillows, all to make what had until then always been such a routine part of his life that he never gave it any thought, going to bed, as easy and comfortable and non-threatening of an experience as possible. Then coming back with Casey to his apartment, first sleeping in the bed with him, so he knew he wasn't alone and he knew he wasn't back at the hotel, then when Casey was comfortable with the idea, moving out to the couch, so Casey could adapt back to sleeping alone, but knowing if he needed Kelly he was still there, just a room away. Casey had heard enough of Dr. Charles' psychobabble in the hospital to get an earful about what he already knew, how his rape could leave him defensive against everyday physical contact, and he knew that Severide _had_ to have gotten the same lecture somewhere, aside from a few instances of actually _asking_ if it was alright to touch him, Kelly had just gone with his gut instinct and reached out to Casey anytime the whole world got too overwhelming for him. Even now Matt couldn't bring himself to openly admit it, but he was grateful for every single time Severide had been there for him, some days it was the only thing that kept him on the edge of his sanity, to know he wasn't alone, that he wasn't going through everything alone, even though at the time he'd misinterpreted it as pity, as being treated as less than equal, less than a firefighter, less than a man, he hated the physical intimacy between them because of what he thought it represented, but he needed it, he fed off it, at times he felt like he couldn't breathe without it.

And looking back, Casey realized what it was that Severide had been trying to say that night, but his pride got in the way as well. Casey knew about the fight Kelly and Shay had had just before she died, and they'd only made amends a few minutes before she was killed. And what Severide had said to him, about not knowing where he was or if he was alive for two days, granted things had been going good between them lately, they had currently been on good terms, but that wasn't always the case. Severide was a hothead and he gave in to his impulses too easily, and far too often it led to a rift between Truck and Squad and eventually left everybody grabbing at each other's throats, but even when they could keep their own men in check they were still sniping at each other. But they'd always patched things up, they'd even had some near death scenarios on the job in the middle of their fights, but they _always_ got a chance to repair their friendship. He realized now part of why Severide had been so attentive and physically close in the last few weeks, wasn't because of any doubts he had of Casey's abilities, it was because he wanted to make sure no matter what might be their last time together, that Casey would know he loved him. And when that realization hit him, it broke his heart and he went to pieces.

Casey clung to Severide, unable to talk, hardly able to even breathe, realizing just how stupid he'd been about everything. And how maddeningly patient Severide had been with him every step of the way, it was mind blowing. This was _not_ the Kelly Severide he'd known since the academy...but it was starting to dawn on him that _all_ of their lives had changed after what happened, it hadn't just been his as he'd originally thought.

"Hey, hey," he heard Kelly whispering to him as he continued to hold him, "easy, it's okay, everything's going to be alright."

Casey forced a few short breaths into his body, trying to speak, he finally got enough air to stay in long enough to tell Kelly, though he lacked the energy to pull back and actually face him, "I love you, Kelly...even when you're an idiot I still love you, never forget that."

Kelly tightened his grip on Casey and smiled as he told the Truck lieutenant, "I love you too, even when _you_ act like an idiot."

Casey felt a pain in his chest as another laughing fit worked its way loose in the midst of his tears. He felt Kelly turn his head and felt his lips brush against his cheek, all Casey could do was tilt his head down as the laughter turned back to sobs.

"Easy, Casey...come on, let's go back to sleep, still got a few hours before morning."

Kelly considered the options for his next course of action. He could've maneuvered both of them back on their sides as they were earlier, but he'd lost half the feeling in his arm doing that already. He could've just moved Casey back over to his side of the bed, but he had a feeling right now Casey needed his presence and his touch more than earlier. Finally he decided they'd try something different, also unorthodox and definitely awkward, he slowly slid down on the mattress so he was laying on his back again and positioned Casey so he was laying half on and half to the side of him with his head resting on Kelly's chest. This was definitely a new one for both of them, and though he knew they definitely didn't need _this_ getting back to anyone at 51, Casey seemed to start to calm down. Slowly the spasms faded away, a small, shaky sob accompanied every breath Casey took in or out, but they became quieter until they were almost nonexistent. Almost. If Casey could actually fall back asleep, that would soon be the end of that.

"Okay now?" Kelly asked.

He felt Casey's head nod in answer.

"Okay...light out?"

He felt another nod. He reached over with his free hand and shut off the light.

* * *

Casey stood outside Molly's and looked in the window, he didn't want to be ambushed by the others, he'd been keeping his distance from most of them since his discharge from Med. Herrmann disappeared into the back and Otis was helping other customers, so he figured it was the perfect time to slip in. He couldn't remember right away when the last time was he'd been in the bar, everything still looked the same, only thing that had changed was the people frequenting it. He went over to the bar and addressed the man seated there, "Chief."

Boden turned and his face lit up. "Casey, haven't seen you around for a while, how're you doing?"

"Uh...okay I guess," Casey said as he sat on the stool beside him.

"Yeah? How' you feeling?"

"Fine."

"How's your therapy going?" Boden asked.

"Hate it," Casey answered honestly.

"What's your therapist say?"

"That I'm making a lot of progress."

"He say anything about you coming back to 51?" Boden asked.

"Uh, she, actually...and yeah, she thinks I'll be ready to come back soon. The doctors at Med have physically cleared me."

"That's great," Boden said, "so what's on your mind?"

Casey sucked in a breath and answered, "I'm not sure about coming back."

Boden didn't seem entirely surprised by his statement. "Why not?"

"During...the sessions with the therapist...I've been remembering bits and pieces from when I was attacked that I had no recollection of before...and I just keep wondering, what happens if we're on a call, and I start to flashback? What if there's something on the scene that...that triggers me? I'd be putting myself and everyone else at risk..."

"Have you been having flashbacks?" Boden asked.

Casey shook his head, "No."

Boden nodded. "I have no doubt that when you're ready to come back..."

"I'm ready _now_ , Chief, I'm going stir crazy sitting around my apartment, but I _don't_ want to jeopardize anybody else," Casey told him.

"I can understand that," Wallace said, "you know what we say at 51, Matt, leaders lead from the front, and I know you've still got it in you."

Casey contemplated it for a minute before asking, "What if I _can't_ do it?"

Boden shook his head and said, "I haven't heard any evidence that suggests you would have any problem. If there is, we will figure it out. When you're ready to come back, Casey, we'll _all_ be ready for you."

Casey nodded and responded, "Thanks, Chief." He got up from the bar stool and headed for the door.

* * *

"Going again today?" Kelly asked the day after the next shift.

"Yep," Casey huffed as he zipped his jacket, "and I'm not looking forward to it."

"Want me to drive?" Kelly asked.

"No thanks," Casey said, "I need to start doing this on my own."

"Hey, Casey," Severide leaned over to get his attention, "I want you to know something. I'm proud of you."

Casey looked at him, "What?"

"I mean it," Kelly told him with full sincerity, "I can't begin to imagine what you've been through, and if it were me in your position, I don't have any idea how I would be getting through it. And therapy?" He snorted, "You know better than anyone that I already tried to leave 51 after Shay died, with this ultimatum I'd probably walk away again, and I sure as hell wouldn't have gone back after the first time, you've kept every appointment."

"Yeah, only because you made me," Casey replied.

Severide scoffed, "You really think I'd let that stop me? Besides, you know after that first session I would've punched out that therapist."

Casey laughed, "Yeah that sounds like something you'd do."

"You're a better man than me, Casey," Severide told him, "what you're going through is harder to deal with than _anything_ we've ever seen on the job, _any_ fire, _any_ situation...and I know you're going to get past this, because I know how strong you are. You've come out on top of everything else, you will now too."

"What makes you so sure?" Casey asked.

"That I don't have to force you out to the car anymore," Kelly answered as he handed Casey his keys. "Good luck."

Matt looked at his keys, then looked at Severide and said to him, "You know, I'm still not sure if a while back..." by which Kelly guessed he meant that same night when Casey actually voiced his doubts about returning to 51, "When you said all that, you were telling the truth, or just trying to make me feel better."

"Now why would I do something dumb like that?" Kelly teased.

"Either way...thanks," Casey reached over and hugged him.

Severide clapped a hand on Casey's back and told him, "You got this, buddy, go."

* * *

Kelly zipped his bag shut and told Casey, "If you're sure this is what you want, I'll go, but are you sure you don't want company for one more night?"

Severide didn't know what happened, but this was the first time Casey came back from therapy and didn't look like death warmed over. He was talkative, he seemed to be in an overall good mood, he still wouldn't tell Kelly what happened during the session but he'd come to accept that. And that night after dinner he dropped the bombshell on Kelly that he intended to get through the night alone.

"You don't know how much I appreciate you staying here the last few weeks," Casey told him, "but remember the original plan? Work back to normal, first I stayed with you, then you stayed here, then you moved out to the couch, so I have to do this, besides, aren't you anxious to get back to your own place?"

"I live alone and I got nobody to talk to," Kelly threw his hands up in a helpless gesture, "bunking with you I'd save on utilities."

Casey laughed at his remark and said, "Remember I said earlier, I don't know if you were telling the truth that night or just trying to make me feel better...well, I _was_ telling the truth, I _could_ get used to you being here all the time, and I think that's a dangerous position to be in."

Severide snorted and responded, "So that's why every woman I meet runs out on me."

"I need you as a friend, Kelly, but if I _am_ going to get past this, I need to learn to stand on my own two feet again," Casey told him.

Severide looked down towards his shoes and nodded, "Okay, yeah, I get it..." he looked up and stared Casey in the eyes and added, "but since we're gonna be a couple miles apart tonight, the furthest we've been from each other in weeks, you could always call if you needed something."

"Kelly..."

"Hey, if you just need to talk to someone, I don't care what time it is, day or night, call me."

Casey sighed as he weighed his options, and finally answered, "Okay. Thanks."

"Anytime."

* * *

Severide heard his phone buzzing and opened his eyes and shot up in bed. It had been a few days since he'd left Casey's apartment, the two had spoken a few times since, but always in the daytime. So this call he was getting at 2:30 in the morning took him by surprise.

"Hello?"

"You said call day or night," Casey said, sounding like he hadn't been to bed yet, "is this a bad time?"

"No," Kelly insisted as he rubbed his eyes with his free hand, "no, it's fine...what's up?"

"Not much," Casey said, "just can't sleep."

"Everything okay?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah...just, thinking."

"What about?" Kelly yawned.

"There's something I've been trying to remember from..."

"Yeah?" Kelly beat him to the punch so he didn't have to say it.

"Were...were _you_ in that room in the hotel when they found me?"

Kelly shook his head, "No, I was two floors down when we heard the news."

There was a brief pause, then a quiet, "Okay."

"Are you sure everything's alright?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah, just something that was on my mind."

Kelly leaned back against the pillows and asked, "Do you want me to tell you now?"

"What?"

" _Who_ it was that found you?"

There was another pause, then an insistent, "No...no, that's not necessary."

"Casey, are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah...everything's fine," Casey said slowly, not sounding all that convincing. "Sorry I woke you up."

"No problem," Severide shook his head. "Think you can go to sleep now?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"Night, buddy."

A/N: Only one more chapter to go!


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Here is the last chapter finally. Sorry it took so long to update. Thanks for reading and all your reviews!

 _"Fire department, call out!"_

 _The voices were muffled, even more so than just from the masks they were wearing, they sounded so far away, almost like a dream._

 _"What the hell?"_

 _Something was pressing against his neck._

 _"Got a pulse, he's still alive!" A pause. "Oh my God, it's Casey!"_

 _"What?"_

 _There was a steady vibration against one of his wrists, he faintly identified it as a sawing motion. Tony was cutting through the ropes he'd been tied to the bed with._

 _Suddenly from somewhere towards the back there was the sound of a struggle, a yell, several grunts and groans, the sounds of somebody hitting the wall._

 _"Capp!"_

 _There were a few more grunts and groans, a couple more noises of somebody being slammed against the wall, then a louder noise, a sickening_ _crunch_ _, and suddenly it was all over, the next thing he heard was a body hitting the floor._

 _"Capp!"_

 _"I got it!"_

 _The ropes were cut through and he felt his body collapse against the bed. Then he felt hands on him, turning him over. The next thing he felt was something being pressed against his face._

 _"Come on, Casey, breathe."_

 _Tony's voice sounded different now, he wasn't sure how exactly. The air tasted fresher than it had a minute ago, he could just about go to sleep._

 _"Tony!" that was Capp, "Get your mask back on, smoke's getting worse!"_

 _"He's still unconscious!" The air got thick again._

 _He could hear the sound of heavy footsteps coming over towards him, then he felt something else pressed against his face, and now Capp's voice sounded different._

 _"Come on, Casey, wake up."_

 _Something caught in his throat and he started coughing, just barely. Then the air was cut off, and he heard Capp's muffled voice, "That's it, Casey, breathe." He felt Capp's hand slapping him on the back._

 _The ropes cutting off circulation in his feet were removed, then he heard Tony's voice._

 _"Let's get him dressed, we can't take him out like this!"_

 _He felt two strong arms wrap around his chest and lift him up, in the process making contact with some of the bruises that covered his body, forcing involuntary moans of pain from his throat._

 _"Take it easy, Casey, we're gonna get you out of here, you're gonna be fine." That was Capp's voice._

 _Two pairs of hands manhandled him and he felt the rough material of the jeans and sweatshirt he was wrangled into._

 _"Let's get him out of here!"_

 _"We can't tell the others about this."_

 _"We'll say Casey was unconscious on the floor, as long as we stick with it, nobody will know any different. But what about him?"_

 _"We'll say he's been dead for a while, if we're lucky the fire will get down here before anybody can get to him."_

 _"Alright. Severide, we found Casey!"_

" _What?" Kelly's voice sounded so far away._

 _"We found him on the 4th floor, he's unconscious, we're bringing him down!"_

 _He felt a gloved hand on his face. He didn't know why he thought of it, but he knew those gloves hadn't been there before._

 _"That'll cover the worst of it for now, let's go."_

 _He felt two sets of arms under him and felt his body being lifted off of the bed, and felt himself being carried away._

 _"It's alright, Casey, we got you, you're gonna be alright."_

* * *

"Matt? Matt."

Casey was drawn out of his thoughts and back to the here and now, which was his therapist's office. She sat in a chair across from him and looked at him as if she was waiting for an answer.

"I'm sorry, what'd you say?" he asked.

The blonde woman in her 30s slowly repeated her question, "Do you remember anything from the time of your rescue?"

Casey sat there in silence for a minute, then answered, "No. Nothing."

She nodded and replied, "It's possible that that will come back later on, if it doesn't I don't want you to see this as a step backwards. When victims lose consciousness during their attacks it's almost impossible for them to get back all memories for that timeline."

Casey nodded, "I understand."

"How have you been sleeping?" she asked, a seemingly nonthreatening question.

"You mean am I having nightmares about what happened to me," Matt said.

"Are you?"

"Sometimes," he admitted, "but..."

"But?"

"Do I wake up in the night screaming from them? No. Do I wake up and think I'm back in the hotel room? No. The ones that haunt me, those are still the ones from the job, the fires I've been in, the victims that I couldn't rescue, _those_ are the ones that get me up in the night...not my attack. Maybe that's a letdown for your expectations of me as a patient, I don't really care. Don't take this the wrong way but, how long do I have to keep seeing you before I can go back to work?"

"Do you think you're ready to go back to work?"

"I _know_ I am."

"Then what're you still doing here?" she asked.

"Boden wouldn't let me come back until I did," he answered.

"And why do you think that is?"

"So I don't get myself and everybody else killed on a job when something triggers a flashback and I think that son of a bitch is raping me all over again," Casey sniped. "This is really what you people do all day?"

She ignored his comment and said, "A while back I gave you an assignment to do, did you get it completed?"

"Yeah," he answered. "My answer is I have nothing to say."

"And why is that?" she asked.

"Because there's nothing _to_ say. Because there's no such thing as closure. He's dead, he's already burning in hell, that pretty much sums up anything I would've had to say. I've worked with the police long enough to get an idea how people like this work. You can't say anything to them that will affect them, and they just feed off your vulnerabilities, so they keep the power, which is what it's all about for them. He already took everything from me he's going to. I'm not wasting my time saying anything that I'll just kick myself for later because I didn't get out of it what I'd planned on."

His therapist just nodded as she looked over her notes, then she took off her glasses and asked him, "So again, why are you _still_ here?"

Casey looked at her. "What?"

"You feel ready to return to work, why haven't you?" she asked.

He stared at her with a confused look on his face, as if he couldn't comprehend the words she'd said.

"You mean..."

"I've already put in my report to the department after last session and concluded that you are mentally and emotionally ready to return to work," she told him.

Casey's chest heaved a couple times as he tried to respond. Finally he asked her, "Are you jerking me around?"

"I've recommended that you return to full duty, effective immediately," she said simply. "You are a man with an incredible support system around you to make as much progress as you have in such a short amount of time, it is my professional opinion you will do well on your recovery."

Casey opened his mouth, then closed it, and inhaled, then exhaled, and asked her, "So I don't have to come here anymore?"

"Not if you don't see a purpose in it," she said.

"I can go back to 51?"

"If you wish."

Matt fidgeted in his chair a couple times, then he jumped up with a victorious howl. He closed the gap between the two of them, put his arms around his therapist and kissed her, then jumped back with another screaming whoop. Then he seemed to remember where he was and tried to compose himself, and just about collapsed back in his chair.

"I'm sorry, I just...thank you! You don't know what this means to me."

"I have a pretty good idea, Matt," she replied with a knowing smile.

He caught his breath a couple times, then ran out of the office, down the hall, left the building and ran out to his truck, screaming triumphantly the entire way. Once he got in the driver's seat of his truck and closed the door, he collapsed against the steering wheel and tried to catch his breath. He sat there for several minutes breathing heavily, then folded his arms over the wheel, rested his head on them, and broke down crying, this time in relief, feeling that the worst was finally over.

* * *

There was a knock at the front door. Casey opened it and saw Severide standing outside.

"Is it true? You're coming back tomorrow?" he asked, looking anxious about the answer.

"That's the plan," Casey answered.

"So...you want some company tonight?" Kelly asked.

Casey smiled at him, "I appreciate it, Kelly, but I don't need someone to hold my hand."

"I know...so do you want some company tonight?" Severide asked.

Casey smiled more genuinely and said, "Definitely."

Severide grinned and showed himself in.

* * *

Casey lay in his bed that night and tossed and turned from one side to the other trying to get comfortable.

"You asleep?" Severide asked from the other side of the bed.

"No," he answered as he turned over and bumped into Kelly.

"Close?"

"No."

"Me either," Kelly said, Casey could almost hear him smiling as he added, "This is as bad as being a kid at Christmas."

"It feels like I've been gone forever," Casey admitted as he turned on his back and looked at the ceiling.

"You'll be fine," Kelly told him.

"I've been afraid to ask, how's it been without me?" Casey asked.

"Your absence is definitely apparent," Severide answered. "Everybody's been going nuts waiting for you to come back."

In the dark, Casey could hear Severide moving around on his side of the bed, and he could just guess what Kelly was doing. Smiling smugly to himself, he hunkered down against the mattress and told him, "You're wasting your time, it's not there."

That caught Kelly off guard. Casey heard him turn over and ask him, "Huh?"

"I gave it back to Herrmann," Casey told him as he pulled the covers up around him.

"Seriously?"

"Yep," he answered, "been sleeping like a baby the past couple weeks."

There was silence for a couple seconds, followed by Severide's voice. "That's great, Casey."

"Yeah, it has been until tonight anyway," Matt replied. "I don't think a whole bottle of sleeping pills would affect me tonight."

"You nervous?" Kelly asked.

Casey hesitated before answering. "Maybe. Like I said, it feels like it's been forever since I was there."

Severide looked over at Casey and told him, "hey, if it'll make you feel better, if it's a slow shift we'll run some extra drills and make sure you're ready."

"Oh that _wouldn't_ be embarrassing at all," Casey said dryly as he turned his back to Kelly.

"Hey, we'll tell the others it's to make sure they didn't slouch off without you," Severide said.

"Hmm...could work."

He felt the mattress shift as Severide turned on his side, and felt his hand on his back, "You'll do great tomorrow, don't worry about it. Just try and get some sleep."

Casey slowly nodded, and closed his eyes, and waited for sleep to come.

* * *

Kelly didn't know if Casey had actually fallen asleep during the night, but he was up early with plenty of nervous energy to burn as he waited for the moment of truth to arrive. Severide woke up at 5 and realized the other side of the bed was empty, curious, he got up and checked the apartment and couldn't find Casey anywhere, so he went outside, and found his truck was still parked at the curb, and looked around and finally saw a figure in the streetlights at the corner and saw Casey running down the block.

"What're you doing?" Kelly asked as Matt came to a stop at the sidewalk.

Casey huffed and puffed and from the illumination of the street lamps Kelly could see Casey was covered in perspiration. How the hell long had he been out there?

"I couldn't sleep," Casey explained as he walked up the steps.

"So what'd you do, run to Evanson and back?" Kelly asked.

Casey heaved a few more breaths and said only, "I need a shower," and headed inside.

By the time the sun actually came up, Casey had showered, shaved, dressed, had half a pot of coffee and three pieces of toast. Kelly tried to lighten the mood by saying, "You know things haven't changed that much at 51, Matt, they still feed you there."

"I feel like I'm going to lose my mind if I stand still," he said.

"Hey, buddy, you got this, just calm down," Kelly told him. "You want to ride with me?"

Casey shook his head, "I'll take my truck."

Severide looked at the clock and said, "Probably won't hurt to head in early, let's go."

* * *

Everybody was already at 51 and waiting on the apparatus floor when Casey and Severide arrived, and the men unanimously welcomed Casey back with an uproar of applause and greetings. Casey tried not to let on how overwhelming it was for him and shifted his eyes so he didn't look at anybody for too long, but he was sure the heat he felt in his cheeks was noticeable.

Herrmann pushed his way to the front of the group and exclaimed, "Oh thank God, Casey, just the man I needed to see." He walked over to Matt and surprised everybody on the floor by hugging Casey and kissing him on the mouth. The floor erupted in an assortment of surprised reactions: eyes bugged out, jaws dropped, a couple of catcalls, a mixture of sounds of shock and amusement, none of which topped the wide eyed look of shock on Casey's face when Herrmann pulled away from him.

"Cindy ain't gonna like this," Mouch exclaimed.

Herrmann ignored that, looked Casey in the eyes and told him, "Please tell me you're taking over again as acting lieutenant, these last few weeks have been _hell_ , I must'a been _nuts_ to want this position."

That earned a laugh from everybody, Casey included, who put a hand on Herrmann's shoulder and told him, "At ease, Herrmann, I'll take it from here."

The whole floor exploded in a thunderous round of applause, none more so than the guys from Truck, who drowned out Hermann's response of "Aw shaddup!", and one by one everybody came up to personally welcome Casey back to 51. Boden was the last to speak. "Glad to have you back, Casey, now our House is complete again."

* * *

Any concerns Casey might've had about being able to do his job after being gone so long quickly evaporated. Shortly after shift began, calls started coming in and Truck, Squad and Engine were off and running, and Casey proved the body and mind didn't forget as he resumed his duties as if he'd never left. In one day they responded to three fires, two gas leaks, and one five car pileup in a main intersection. By night, everybody was exhausted and took advantage of the sudden lull between calls and headed to the bunk room to get some sleep while they could. Severide left his quarters and headed over to Casey's to check on him, though the rooms were dark he could see that Casey wasn't in his bed. A couple ideas came to him where he might be, first, though it seemed highly unlikely, he checked the bunks in the main room to see if he'd crawled in somewhere among the others, no such luck.

The locker room was empty, or appeared to be anyway, but as Severide entered and hit the lights, he could hear a weird sound coming from the showers. He headed over and checked every possible spot on the way that Casey might be, turning up nothing. He reached the showers and heard the muffled sounds coming from the middle stall.

"Casey?" He grabbed the curtain and pulled it back, and was met with an unusual sight of Casey rolling around on the floor of the stall with both hands pressed over his mouth, trying futilely to stifle the sounds that were coming out of him.

Initially, Kelly worried Casey might be having a seizure of some kind, he knelt down beside the stall and reached over to him to check him over. "Casey, you okay?"

Casey moved his hands, and what came out of his throat at full force was loud, hysterical, shrieking laughter. Kelly grabbed him and tried to restrain him. "Casey, what is it?"

One particularly loud howling laugh came out of him and he fell flat against the floor, unable to breathe. His body went through a spasm of still laughing but now there was no sound to accompany it, though he sucked in a few loud gulps of air as he tried to calm down. Finally he told Severide, "It worked...it _worked_...I did it...I still belong here."

Kelly readjusted his hold on Casey and embraced him, "Of course you do, I told you you'd be fine."

Casey placed one hand over his mouth again and closed his eyes, and said with a slight muffle, "You don't know...you just don't know what it's been like."

Severide held Casey tightly against him and clapped a hand on his back and told him, "I told you you were worrying for nothing...now it's all over."

Casey laughed as he reached around Kelly's back and held onto him, and responded, "Yeah..." then in a quieter voice that Severide couldn't hear he added, surprisingly somber, "almost."

* * *

 _"Casey? Psst, Casey, you awake?"_

 _"Leave him alone, Capp, let him rest. He wakes up he's gonna be a holy terror."_

 _That's what they thought. He'd only been pretending to be asleep because he got fed up with Capp trying to keep him amused. He was hoping if he played possum, they'd take the hint and go away. Didn't seem to be any such luck, they were determined to stay in his hospital room until Severide returned from whatever the hell it was he was doing.  
_

 _"Just checking." Capp's voice got distant, but Casey could still hear him, "Do you think he knows?"_

 _"He was pretty out of it, if he doesn't say anything, neither will we. The best we can hope for is that he forgets what happened."_

 _"Yeah, but they know we lied about how we found him, what about the rest of it?"_

 _"So we were wrong how long the bastard had been dead, we're firemen, not doctors. We should've let him burn."_

 _"If we did, Casey wouldn't know the son of a bitch that did this is dead, it's better this way. At least he doesn't have to worry about that prick coming after him again."_

 _"If only we'd gotten there sooner."_

* * *

Casey hadn't been sure at the time if the conversation he'd heard had just been the drugs they had him on, or if he'd dreamed it. But in all actuality, he knew, he put it all together the night Voight came to the hospital. After Voight had left, and everyone from 51 had crowded around him, he'd felt their hands on him and he knew everybody's hand by touch. He didn't know how he knew them, but he had, and he knew the big hand that rested on the back of his head, was the same big hand that had hit him on the back when he started coughing, the same hand he'd felt snake around his ribcage when he'd been lifted off the bed to be dressed. He knew, but he tried not to think about it, he didn't want to think about it, he didn't want to admit it, any of it.

Next shift, Casey got to 51 earlier than usual and saw that he'd beat Severide there, he went to the locker room and felt he'd hit on a stroke of luck because Tony and Capp were there, already changed for shift, and they were the only other ones in the room. He went over to them and said, "Hey, guys, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure thing, Casey, what's up?" Tony asked.

He knew it wouldn't be easy before he even arrived, and though he'd gone over in his head what he was going to say to them, it wasn't any easier, he looked at them, and noted their nonchalant expressions as though everything was perfectly normal, even though he knew it wasn't, and he knew they had to know it wasn't, and he felt very self conscious, he'd started to regret doing this, but he couldn't back out now. So he fought every fiber of his being that was telling him to turn and run, and he said what he'd come there to tell them.

"I just...wanted to say...thanks, for pulling me out of the hotel room...thanks for, everything."

It felt like the walls were closing in on him, more to the point he felt like the two of them were closing in on him.

"It's no problem, Casey," Tony said to him, "we do anything for one of our own."

Casey slowly nodded and tried to act casual, but the air felt thick and it was hard to breathe and he felt lightheaded. He felt his head spinning, then he felt himself falling.

"Whoa!"

Two sets of hands grabbed him and somebody pulled him to his feet again. Casey heard himself breathing heavily, felt his chest heaving, did _not_ want this to happen, did _not_ want to fall apart in front of them, but he couldn't stop himself, he kept his head down and sucked in long inhales and choked them back out in short exhales. The next thing Casey knew, every part of his body was being squished as he was sandwiched between two strong firemen who were choking the life out of him in an awkward group hug. He felt that same telltale hand of Capp's patting him on the back as he told him, "You're okay."

In front of him he heard Tony's voice, and felt his hand tapping his cheek, "Come on, Casey, breathe."

Casey lifted his head, opened his eyes and was able to focus again. He heard the sound of the door opening, and without turning his head to look, he was able to see through the corner of his eye, Severide entering the locker room, and after briefly taking in the unusual sight before him, doubling back out the door without a word.

After another minute or so, Casey felt them pull away, he felt somebody's hand pat him on the shoulder and Tony asked him, "You okay, Casey?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah," he answered as he rubbed one eye, "sorry about that." He shook his head as if trying to clear it from a fog, and told them, "Thanks."

Casey left the locker room and saw Severide standing beside the door.

"Hey, Casey, you alright?" he asked.

Matt looked at him and nodded, "Yeah, I think so...finally."

* * *

The apartment building Severide was staying at was being fumigated, so he'd decided to stay with Casey for a couple days until it was safe to go back. Casey had invited him in but past that he seemed to be preoccupied with something and hardly stayed still for a minute, which Severide admitted wasn't quite like Casey, but he didn't think much of it either, and proceeded to make himself at home for the time being.

Casey spent almost an hour in the shower, and when he came out of the bathroom he was dressed in notably nicer stuff than he usually just palled around the apartment in, and even Severide took notice.

"What's the occasion?" he asked.

Casey stopped at the mirror on the wall and smoothed back his hair. "I have a date tonight."

"What?" Kelly threw his magazine behind the couch and hopped up, "Who is she? Where'd you meet, and how many kids does she have?"

"It's a blind date," Casey told him as he smoothed over his shirt to make sure there weren't any wrinkles, "Otis set me up."

"Otis? He can't even get himself a date," Kelly said, "who is she?"

"I don't know, some friend of a friend of a friend or something like that," Casey responded anxiously, "we're supposed to meet in half an hour."

"Casey, calm down," Kelly noted how erratic his friend was behaving, and quickly became concerned he was going to work himself up into a panic attack, "Just take it easy and breathe, okay?"

Casey looked annoyed but he loudly inhaled to humor him.

"Better?"

Casey took another deep breath, then announced with a shake of his head, "I'm not going."

"What?" Kelly asked. "Why not?"

"I can't do this," Casey said as he started to walk away.

"Of course you can."

"I can't," Casey turned back towards him and asked, "What if she wants to go back to her place? What if she wants to go to a hotel?"

"Then just tell her you're not that kind of guy," Kelly said simply.

Casey responded with an elbow to his ribs.

"Alright then, just tell her you have to get up early tomorrow for work," Severide told him.

"Then she'll think I don't like her," Casey said.

Kelly shrugged, "What if you don't like her? What's the problem then?"

"What if I _do_ like her?" Casey responded.

There was a pause between them for a minute as Kelly contemplated the question, finally he answered, "If you like her, and if she likes you, then she should be able to understand taking a rain check on going to bed at least until your _second_ date."

"I don't think I can do this," Casey admitted.

"Casey, stop, you're going to be fine," Kelly told him. "Just take it easy, and go slow. What's the rush?"

Casey took in another heavy breath as he thought about it.

"Okay, I'll tell you what, give me your phone," Kelly told him, and proceeded to help himself through Casey's pockets trying to find it.

"What're you doing?" Casey asked.

Kelly found his phone and started typing something on it, "If the date starts to go south, or you just want to get the hell out of there, just send me this message, I'll call you with some big emergency and you can leave and look like the hero, how could she get mad about that?"

Casey was sure there was an answer for that, but he couldn't think of one.

"I get it," Kelly told him. It was Casey's first time on a date since the rape had occurred, and it was only natural he was having doubts about how the night would go. "But you got this, buddy, I know you do."

"What if everything goes wrong?" Casey asked.

"Like what? Bad food, lousy movie?"

"What if I start freaking out in the middle of the date? What's she going to think?" Casey asked.

"If you think you are, just message me, I'll come pick you up, and I'll have an explanation all ready for her," Kelly said.

Casey looked at him, dumbstruck. "You'd do that?"

"Sure," Severide responded. "What're friends for?"

Casey inhaled slowly, and explained, "I just want everything to go right."

"Well you'll know if it is or not, if it's not, just get out of there, you can try again with someone else," Kelly told him.

Casey was breathing erratically again and it took a few minutes for him to calm down enough to tell Severide, "I'm going."

Severide grinned. "I'm proud of you."

"I'm leaving now before I change my mind," Casey told him as he grabbed his jacket.

"Good luck," Kelly called to him.

"Don't say that!"

* * *

Kelly figured within an hour or so, Casey would be calling him to either come get him, or to come up with an excuse why Casey had to hightail it out of wherever he went with his date. He sat on the couch and watched TV while he waited to hear from his friend...and waited...and waited...and finally fell asleep. When he woke up, it was morning and he heard the front door being unlocked, and he saw Casey step in.

"Well I didn't hear from you all night," he said, "so I'm guessing the date went well."

"Uh, yeah...it was fine," Casey said distantly, not making eye contact with him.

"What happened?"

"Uh...not much," Casey said as he took off his jacket.

"Not much? You were out all night."

"I know...I'm exhausted, I'm going to lay down for a while," Casey said as he headed towards the bedroom.

Severide was just starting to wonder what that was all about when he heard a knock at the door. He got off the couch and went to see who it was.

There was a woman standing outside, either late 20s or early 30s, long dark hair, eyes like a husky dog. Not exactly beautiful, but at face value _he'd_ date her.

"Uh, hi," she said sheepishly, "Does Matt Casey live here?"

"Yeah, he does," Kelly answered, "can I help you?"

"My name's Janice Walker. We had a date last night," she told him, "and he forgot his phone when he left."

Kelly took it and tried to figure out how to ask what had gone on last night, he definitely wasn't going to get any answers out of Casey.

"Are you Kelly?" she asked.

"Yeah, I am."

"He'd started writing you a text and then he just erased it, he said he'd talk to you today, whatever it was," she said.

"Oh," Kelly didn't have any idea what to make of that.

"He ducked out early this morning, I think he was embarrassed about what happened last night."

Kelly was very tempted to ask her not to share any details with him, he wasn't sure he wanted to know, but before he could, she explained, "See, the hotel I'm staying at has thin walls and the people in the next room kind of killed the mood so once things quieted down, he just fell asleep."

Kelly looked at her. "You...you _live_ in a hotel?"

"For the time being," she answered, "I told him I should be able to get an apartment in a couple weeks and then if we go out again we could actually have some privacy...he seemed to like that idea, last night was just kind of a wash."

"I see," Kelly said, slowly putting the pieces together, "well, I'll get him his phone and let him know that you stopped by."

"Thank you," she said, then turned to leave.

Kelly closed the door, then headed over to the bedroom and walked in. Casey had already gotten into bed and had the covers pulled up, Severide walked over and stood over the bed, and after a few seconds he saw Casey's eyes open.

"What is it?"

"Your date was just here," Kelly dropped the phone on the bedspread, "you left that behind when you left this morning."

"Oh..."

"You stayed the night in a hotel?" Severide asked.

"I really don't want to talk about it, Kelly."

"Come on, Casey, it didn't sound to me like you have anything to be embarrassed about."

"You want to talk embarrassing?" Casey asked, "As thin as those walls were, you never heard anything so obscene in your life! I didn't know what to do! I was ready to call in a false alarm just so Engine could turn the hose on those people!"

Kelly laughed. "So you gonna see her again?"

Casey turned on his side to face away from Severide, but he answered, "I'd like to...we had a good time, until _that_ happened anyway."

Severide just grinned as he imagined his friend's discomfort.

"I'm proud of you, Casey," he told him, "you got through your date, spent the night with her in a hotel room, and did it all without any problems."

" _Almost_ no problems, I was just about to hit the ceiling if they didn't shut up next door," Casey said.

Kelly laughed so hard he doubled over and pressed his head into Casey's back.

"I _am_ proud of you, buddy," he told Matt, "that was a big hurdle you cleared."

Casey sighed and hit his head against the pillows, "I suppose so...my life _still_ isn't normal, but I think I can deal with it."

* * *

2 months later-

Casey walked through the corridor at Chicago Med. He'd talked to Maggie and gotten the room number of the patient he wanted. He'd seen the family out in the waiting room, who so far had been denied any visits. He approached the room and through the glass walls he saw her lying in the hospital bed, not really asleep but looking like she was. Her name, Casey found out when he stopped by the hospital for an update, was Shawna Baxter, she was 16 years old, she barely looked 12.

They'd responded to a building fire yesterday on shift, they swept the floors and evacuated anybody they found and carried out anybody who couldn't make it on their own. Casey had kicked in one door and found a middle aged man on the floor half conscious, and he'd radioed for the paramedics to bring up a stair chair so they could get him out of there. Then, amidst the roar of the flames close by, he'd heard something. It sounded like someone else was in the room, the smoke was starting to get thick but he didn't see anybody. He went through the apartment room by room, and finally reached the back bedroom, there was no sign of anybody, he hadn't even noticed that the fire was getting closer. Finally he heard somebody enter the apartment and turned to see Severide heading towards him.

"Casey!" he went over to the Truck lieutenant, "this whole place is gonna come down soon, we gotta get out!"

"There's someone else here!" Casey told him.

Severide looked around, "Where?"

That's what he didn't know, and he hated to admit it. But he refused to admit that he was just hearing things or he was going crazy. Casey went over to the closet and opened it. There was hardly anything in it, but he found himself staring at the back wall for some reason.

"What is it?" Kelly's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Working in construction, Casey had some experience with putting up walls, and he couldn't put his finger on what it was, but there was something about the wall in the back of the closet that wasn't right. He kicked it with his boot and the plaster broke away.

"It's a fake wall!" he realized, and made a couple more holes to pull it open.

Severide helped him move it, and both were stunned beyond words at what they saw.

She'd been tied at the wrists and was hanging from a chain suspended from the ceiling, her feet barely even touched the ground. Blood that had long since dried covered the bottom of her dress and trailed down her legs where it congealed, her long brown hair was a matted mess, she was covered in dirt and looked like it had been months since she'd been clean, and weeks since she'd eaten or been out in the sunlight. She was barely conscious but somehow she weakly murmured, seemingly unaware of the firemen's presence, "Help me...please, help me..."

Severide recovered from his shock and radioed for a C-collar and a backboard, while Casey went over to the girl and untied her wrists from the chain and eased her down.

Somewhere above them it sounded like something exploded, and before Boden's voice came through the radios for everyone to evacuate they already knew they couldn't stay there any longer and had to get the hell out. Casey took two steps towards the bed, ripped off the comforter, draped it around the girl who was no longer responsive, then bent down and slung her over his shoulders, there was almost nothing to her, grabbed her wrists and feet and told Severide, "Let's get the hell out!"

They reached the hall just as the EMTs were getting ready to carry the man down, in passing Casey raised his leg as best he could in his turnout gear and kicked the man as hard as he could, saying only, "Son of a bitch!" One look at the girl he was carrying down removed the need for any questions the paramedics may have had about what just happened.

Everybody got out in close proximity to each other, Casey walked over to a waiting backboard and Severide helped him lower the girl onto it, who was collared, put on oxygen, and loaded into an ambulance.

"How'd you know she was there?" Kelly asked him as they got their masks off.

"I heard her calling for help," Casey answered.

Kelly shook his head, "No way you could've heard that 2 rooms away through a wall."

"But I _heard_ her," Casey insisted.

They'd stayed on the scene to contain the fire and they didn't get back to the station until 2 hours later. From there the calls kept pouring in all day, it was only after shift change when everybody went home that it occurred to Casey to stop in at Med and see if he could find out anything about the girl's condition.

Today she looked different than when they'd found her. She'd been cleaned up, put on an IV for fluids, somehow someone had been able to get the knots out of her hair without resorting to cutting it all off, it was hard to believe it was the same girl.

Casey cleared his throat, "Shawna..."

The girl opened her eyes quickly and glared at him, she didn't say anything at first, then she told him, "Go away, I'm not talking to any shrinks," and turned away from him.

That took him a bit by surprise, but he recovered and told her, "I'm not a shrink, I'm one of the firefighters that found you."

"That's even worse," she snapped, "just go away and leave me alone, I want to die!"

Casey found himself nodding, even though she couldn't see it. "I know...I know what it's like."

The teenage girl shrieked in anger as she turned over to face him and demanded to know, "What the hell would _you_ know?"

"Actually, a lot, the same thing that happened to you happened to me."

She blinked, "What?"

"In fact..." Casey looked around the room, "I can't be sure, but I think they even put me in this same bed."

The girl looked at him curiously, "You mean you..."

Casey nodded, "Some guy I'd never seen before sneaked up behind me, bashed my head in, next thing I knew, I woke up in a hotel tied to the bed...three days later I was finally pulled out, _by_ the same firefighters I work with."

"Oh God," she groaned as that mental image occurred to her.

"Yeah, wanting to die definitely sums it up," Casey replied sympathetically.

She didn't know how to respond to that, for a minute she sat up in bed with her knees against her chest, and she asked him, "Are my parents still out there?"

"Yeah, they're waiting to see you," Casey answered.

Shawna started crying hysterically as she said, "I can't see them...I can't tell them what happened, they'll never believe me."

"The fact that they're here and waiting to see you, says to me that they love you very much and they just want to make sure you're alright," Casey told her.

The girl looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. "They'll never believe it wasn't my fault. It _wasn't_."

"I know," Casey said.

She wouldn't look at him, but he could see her eyes turning red and welling up with tears as she explained, "I was on a date, and we got into a fight, and he threw me out of the car...then this guy comes up in a van and offers me a ride...I told him I was fine...but he grabbed me...I tried to get out but the door was locked. I tried to escape but I couldn't."

Matt nodded sympathetically.

"I don't know how long I was in there," she told him, "I thought I was going to die there...I wish I did, then nobody would know."

"I understand that," Casey said, "but let me ask you a question. Do you get along with your family?"

"Usually," she said.

"Any problems at home?"

She thought about it for a few seconds, then shook her head. "Not really."

"Well, what I saw out there was a group of people who are worried about you, who are anxious to see you. I can tell you from personal experience, recovery from this is hard, but if you have a great family that loves you who can help you, it can be done...and it's worth it. There are a lot of days it doesn't seem like it, but you were strong enough to survive your attack, you're _definitely_ strong enough to heal from it."

She looked at him with a tear rolling down one cheek and she asked, "What if it's not worth it? Nothing's ever going to be the same."

"No, you're right, it isn't...and I know it sounds strange, but that's not always a bad thing."

She scoffed and asked hysterically, "What good could possibly come from something like this?"

"I don't know I'd necessarily call it 'good', but it's a little easier when somebody else can understand what you're going through...it doesn't quite feel like you're all alone in this," Casey said.

She looked at him inquisitively through the corner of one eye.

"The only advice I can give you is to be patient, with your family, and yourself...if you ever want to talk...here's my card."

Shawna took it, and squinted her eyes at the name, "Casey Construction?"

"Yeah," he replied, "us firemen have to have something to do on our off days."

She turned her head and looked up at him with both eyes and she said in a low voice, "Thank you for saving me."

"No need to thank me, it's what we do," he said.

She looked at him uncertainly and tried to speak, "C-c-can I hug you?"

Her question took him by surprise but Casey smiled, "Sure."

He leaned over the bed and felt her arms lock behind his back, it was amazing what a couple days of fluids and food could do to restore a person's strength.

"You're going to be okay," he told her as he pulled back. "Though another word of advice, if you see a therapist, you _will_ hate it, every day, and that's precisely why you have to do it. Trust me, the only reason I went back after the first time is my best friend forced me. For the longest time I hated both of them for it, but it turned out to be worth it."

The teen girl nodded and told him again, "Thank you."

* * *

Kelly stood leaning against the wall a few feet from the room and watched as Casey came out the door and closed it behind him. He got out of the range of vision of the see-through glass walls before he raised a hand to his face.

"You okay?" Kelly asked.

Casey didn't seem surprised to see him. He wiped away the few tears that had worked their way loose, swallowed the lump that was growing in his throat and nodded and got out a choked, "Yeah, fine."

"How's she?" Severide asked.

"Doing alright," Casey answered. He sniffed and said, "She's got a long road ahead of her, but I think she'll be fine."

Kelly pulled Matt into a hug and clapped both hands on his back, he felt Casey do the same. Then Casey pulled back and told Severide, "Thank you for everything you did to help me. I would've died in that fire if it hadn't been for Tony and Capp, but I don't think I could've gotten this far if it hadn't been for you."

"Anytime, buddy. Come on, let's go home."


End file.
